4 ms·

In capitalist countries (like liberal democracies), the ruling class are the large capitalists.

by dontlaugh 4y ago

ericmay 4y ago
Who is the ruling class in non-capitalist countries?
- monkey_monkey 4y ago
  Oh come on, this isn't difficult. Who do you think the ruling class is in North Korea? Who do you think the ruling class was in the Soviet Union?
  - yesbut 4y ago
    He's trolling
- qiskit 4y ago
  For any country, ask yourself whose interest the government/military/media/etc exists to serve. I'll give you a hint. It's never 'the people'. In capitalist countries, it's to serve the interest of capital. In monarchies, it's to serve the interest of the monarch. In communist countries, it's the serve the interest of the party. God knows what north korea is. A communist monarchy?
  - ericmay 4y ago
    What should I do with this information?
    - qiskit 4y ago
      Use it as inspiration to upvote me of course.
      - ericmay 4y ago
        Yea maybe. I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with these "capitalism is the ruling class" drive-by comments. Like.. so what? I like my iPhone and getting bread from the grocery store. I like that in America as flawed as it is I can post funny pictures of the most powerful person we elect. Many people hold up capitalist countries like Sweden or Norway as examples of good governance, yet they also serve their "capitalist masters". What am I supposed to do here? Not vote? Demand that we dissolve the government?
        qiskit 4y ago
        I guess you can cry about apple removing the flag icon? I don't know what you want. I'm just answering a question you asked. You asked this: "Who is the ruling class in non-capitalist countries? " I answered this: "For any country, ask yourself whose interest the government/military/media/etc exists to serve. I'll give you a hint. It's never 'the people'. In capitalist countries, it's to serve the interest of capital. In monarchies, it's to serve the interest of the monarch. In communist countries, it's the serve the interest of the party. God knows what north korea is. A communist monarchy?" My response wasn't about capitalists or capitalism. My response was about the ruling class for any country. You are so agenda driven you only see what you want. You asked a question, I answered and you are crying about what other people wrote. Not what I wrote.
        klibertp 4y ago
        Why would you need to do anything? I mean, unless you're a hardliner anarchist, you accept that there always will be a class of people in power. Whether they buy the power with money, seize the power with violence, get it handed to them due to being born in a certain family matters little, in my opinion. The important part is setting up a system where the powerful cannot abuse their power to the detriment of society and where the lower classes have some basic rights guaranteed. Before you do set up a system like that, you unfortunately need to first educate the lower classes enough for them to realize that they want and need such a system in place. And that's the hard part, a main issue when talking about some Asian democracies, and a thing you're missing, I think.
    - crawfordcomeaux 4y ago
      Have you considered exercising the right to found a new nation? Or exercising the right to peacefully revoke consent to be governed? Or perhaps abandoning preferences so that your likes/dislikes aren't so determined by capitalism?
      - ericmay 4y ago
        > Have you considered exercising the right to found a new nation? Or exercising the right to peacefully revoke consent to be governed? Like as in have I considered actually doing it? No not really. As far as I know there's no new land in the world where anyone can lay a claim to. All of the world's governments have claimed all land in the world, so to found a new nation you have to create a new monopoly on violence for a given geographic area, and that's hard to do. > Or perhaps abandoning preferences so that your likes/dislikes aren't so determined by capitalism? So I don't see how this is connected to your other sentence. If you replaced capitalism with government then I think that would make sense. Bringing capitalism into this doesn't make any sense to me.
        chasil 4y ago
        This is not quite correct. If you want to create your own county, there is one place where you can. There is an unclaimed area between Egypt and Sudan. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/02/bir-tawil-land-no-country-wants.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/02/bir-tawil-land-no-coun...
    - wincy 4y ago
      Even if you try to lay claim to your own nation, you’ll very quickly get bullied by nearby nations [0] [0] https://www.insider.com/thailand-says-us-mans-seasteading-home-violates-sovereignty-2019-4 https://www.insider.com/thailand-says-us-mans-seasteading-ho...
  - yesbut 4y ago
    If we go by the Marxist definition of communist then the people would be serving the people, democratically. But I don't think we've ever seen a small "c" communist country yet. Even the Chinese CCP acknowledges that China isn't communist yet.
klibertp 4y ago
There's a local bent here, in that the large capitalists may rule everywhere, but the level of acceptance of that rule varies drastically between societies. In a society that was essentially feudal with a sanctioned slavery for thousands of years, that transitioned to a military junta dictatorship and only relatively recently started transitioning to liberal democracy, the ruled largely accepted having absolutely no recourse against the ruling. That there's a hotline now is actually a real, and substantial, progress.
- yongjik 4y ago
  That's one way of looking at it but I'm not too sure about that. After all, the reason South Korea now enjoys a (mostly) functional democracy is that its people were not okay with the ruling class, and fought against the power for decades. Also, Korea went through a lot of social upheaval in the 20th century, which acted as a huge social mixer. The capitalist rulers of 2022 are not necessarily the descendants of old aristocrats of 1890s. Hyundai's founder was famously born to a dirt-poor farmer.

In capitalist countries (like liberal democracies), the ruling class are the large capitalists.

ericmay 4y ago

Who is the ruling class in non-capitalist countries?

monkey_monkey 4y ago
Oh come on, this isn't difficult. Who do you think the ruling class is in North Korea? Who do you think the ruling class was in the Soviet Union?
- yesbut 4y ago
  He's trolling
qiskit 4y ago
For any country, ask yourself whose interest the government/military/media/etc exists to serve. I'll give you a hint. It's never 'the people'. In capitalist countries, it's to serve the interest of capital. In monarchies, it's to serve the interest of the monarch. In communist countries, it's the serve the interest of the party. God knows what north korea is. A communist monarchy?
- ericmay 4y ago
  What should I do with this information?
  - qiskit 4y ago
    Use it as inspiration to upvote me of course.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      Yea maybe. I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with these "capitalism is the ruling class" drive-by comments. Like.. so what? I like my iPhone and getting bread from the grocery store. I like that in America as flawed as it is I can post funny pictures of the most powerful person we elect. Many people hold up capitalist countries like Sweden or Norway as examples of good governance, yet they also serve their "capitalist masters". What am I supposed to do here? Not vote? Demand that we dissolve the government?
      - qiskit 4y ago
        I guess you can cry about apple removing the flag icon? I don't know what you want. I'm just answering a question you asked. You asked this: "Who is the ruling class in non-capitalist countries? " I answered this: "For any country, ask yourself whose interest the government/military/media/etc exists to serve. I'll give you a hint. It's never 'the people'. In capitalist countries, it's to serve the interest of capital. In monarchies, it's to serve the interest of the monarch. In communist countries, it's the serve the interest of the party. God knows what north korea is. A communist monarchy?" My response wasn't about capitalists or capitalism. My response was about the ruling class for any country. You are so agenda driven you only see what you want. You asked a question, I answered and you are crying about what other people wrote. Not what I wrote.
      - klibertp 4y ago
        Why would you need to do anything? I mean, unless you're a hardliner anarchist, you accept that there always will be a class of people in power. Whether they buy the power with money, seize the power with violence, get it handed to them due to being born in a certain family matters little, in my opinion. The important part is setting up a system where the powerful cannot abuse their power to the detriment of society and where the lower classes have some basic rights guaranteed. Before you do set up a system like that, you unfortunately need to first educate the lower classes enough for them to realize that they want and need such a system in place. And that's the hard part, a main issue when talking about some Asian democracies, and a thing you're missing, I think.
  - crawfordcomeaux 4y ago
    Have you considered exercising the right to found a new nation? Or exercising the right to peacefully revoke consent to be governed? Or perhaps abandoning preferences so that your likes/dislikes aren't so determined by capitalism?
    - ericmay 4y ago
      > Have you considered exercising the right to found a new nation? Or exercising the right to peacefully revoke consent to be governed? Like as in have I considered actually doing it? No not really. As far as I know there's no new land in the world where anyone can lay a claim to. All of the world's governments have claimed all land in the world, so to found a new nation you have to create a new monopoly on violence for a given geographic area, and that's hard to do. > Or perhaps abandoning preferences so that your likes/dislikes aren't so determined by capitalism? So I don't see how this is connected to your other sentence. If you replaced capitalism with government then I think that would make sense. Bringing capitalism into this doesn't make any sense to me.
      - chasil 4y ago
        This is not quite correct. If you want to create your own county, there is one place where you can. There is an unclaimed area between Egypt and Sudan. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/02/bir-tawil-land-no-country-wants.html https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/02/bir-tawil-land-no-coun...
  - wincy 4y ago
    Even if you try to lay claim to your own nation, you’ll very quickly get bullied by nearby nations [0] [0] https://www.insider.com/thailand-says-us-mans-seasteading-home-violates-sovereignty-2019-4 https://www.insider.com/thailand-says-us-mans-seasteading-ho...
- yesbut 4y ago
  If we go by the Marxist definition of communist then the people would be serving the people, democratically. But I don't think we've ever seen a small "c" communist country yet. Even the Chinese CCP acknowledges that China isn't communist yet.

klibertp 4y ago

There's a local bent here, in that the large capitalists may rule everywhere, but the level of acceptance of that rule varies drastically between societies. In a society that was essentially feudal with a sanctioned slavery for thousands of years, that transitioned to a military junta dictatorship and only relatively recently started transitioning to liberal democracy, the ruled largely accepted having absolutely no recourse against the ruling. That there's a hotline now is actually a real, and substantial, progress.

yongjik 4y ago
That's one way of looking at it but I'm not too sure about that. After all, the reason South Korea now enjoys a (mostly) functional democracy is that its people were not okay with the ruling class, and fought against the power for decades. Also, Korea went through a lot of social upheaval in the 20th century, which acted as a huge social mixer. The capitalist rulers of 2022 are not necessarily the descendants of old aristocrats of 1890s. Hyundai's founder was famously born to a dirt-poor farmer.