3 ms·

In extreme capitalism, even the government is up for sale to the highest bidders.

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> In extreme capitalism, even the government is up for sale to the highest bidders. I'm going to guess (with a great deal of certainty) that you've never spent time in a former or current socialist/communist country, because that is how things get done there with the implicit expectation of it being the precursor for how anything gets done. I think that is one of the many overlaps all States have in common: the superficial means may differ but through largess and outright theft (and eventual consolidation) of a Nation's wealth amongst a minority with an effective monopoly on violence is the crux of how they all operate. Condemning it entirely and finding a new ways to structure Society should be the aim, but since tribalism is so effective you have the plebs fighting amongst themselves about who's corrupt system steals from them the most legitimately.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  > Condemning it entirely and finding a new way to structure Society should be the aim Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible.
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible. Funny, we have entirely different interpretations of the significance of the Republic; if there was any book that substantiated the need to move away from the Nation State model it was that! Any Society which sought to kill it's professed 'Philosopher King' due to it's own hubris is unfit to structure what we call Civilization--more so when that individual claims to 'know nothing' but exposes the vapid nature of it's rulers and it's Legal system to be a murderous farce. The fact that Humans have repeated this cycle since Ancient Greece is testament of not just our collective folly in the West to learn from our predecessors but also underscores just how long the scale of these cycles are rather than what you purport, I'm afraid. The Republic was actually what made me look further into Anarchism after repeated readings since I was in my early teens, and its what I advocate for those who are interested on the topic should begin to see how far it goes back. With that said, I'm well aware Plato advocated for a plutocracy/oligarchy, but one need only look to the Kyklos [0] or anacyclosis to know that one is just the precursor to the other and I think I side with Aristole's assessment (though not his conclusion) more anyhow. The fact that we haven't broken this perverse cycle is testament of Humanity's inherit flaw and begs a much bigger question about the many paving our own road towards extinction for the benefit of the few; because as we've seen with COVID and now Russia's cataclysmic invasion in Ukrainian and the CCP's saber rattling with Taiwan they all seem intent more than anything to bring about the collective demise of Human civilization via Nuclear War in the backdrop of the damage that climate change has wrought upon the World--much of which all Nation states has enabled. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos
- machina_ex_deus 4y ago
  Don't get me wrong, communism is much worst. But capitalism naturally decays into feudalism or fascism, democracy is an unstable state. You need political pressure from the people to keep a democracy, and if they are asleep or distracted by the media democracies naturally decay into this. It's not like you either have capitalism and democracy or communism and autocracy, you have capitalism with feudalism/fascism/oligopoly or communism. You've got an unstable state of democracy with capitalism in the middle which can easily decay either left or right but can hardly correct back into the middle. Funnily enough, many citizens of so called democracies which are actually no longer democracies think that just because they aren't communistic then they are democratic. Democracies allow politicians to change the law for their own elections. They allow them to consolidate power in other ways. They can be overtaken by the media. Many countries have the potential to become democracies again without violence, but it requires an understanding and education of the population that is missing, and heavy propaganda blinds them.
inglor_cz 4y ago
Behind the Iron Curtain, you had to bribe various government officials even if you were far from "the highest bidder". Sometimes the bribes were as trivial as a packet of wurst.

> In extreme capitalism, even the government is up for sale to the highest bidders. I'm going to guess (with a great deal of certainty) that you've never spent time in a former or current socialist/communist country, because that is how things get done there with the implicit expectation of it being the precursor for how anything gets done. I think that is one of the many overlaps all States have in common: the superficial means may differ but through largess and outright theft (and eventual consolidation) of a Nation's wealth amongst a minority with an effective monopoly on violence is the crux of how they all operate. Condemning it entirely and finding a new ways to structure Society should be the aim, but since tribalism is so effective you have the plebs fighting amongst themselves about who's corrupt system steals from them the most legitimately.

fallingknife 4y ago
> Condemning it entirely and finding a new way to structure Society should be the aim Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible. Funny, we have entirely different interpretations of the significance of the Republic; if there was any book that substantiated the need to move away from the Nation State model it was that! Any Society which sought to kill it's professed 'Philosopher King' due to it's own hubris is unfit to structure what we call Civilization--more so when that individual claims to 'know nothing' but exposes the vapid nature of it's rulers and it's Legal system to be a murderous farce. The fact that Humans have repeated this cycle since Ancient Greece is testament of not just our collective folly in the West to learn from our predecessors but also underscores just how long the scale of these cycles are rather than what you purport, I'm afraid. The Republic was actually what made me look further into Anarchism after repeated readings since I was in my early teens, and its what I advocate for those who are interested on the topic should begin to see how far it goes back. With that said, I'm well aware Plato advocated for a plutocracy/oligarchy, but one need only look to the Kyklos [0] or anacyclosis to know that one is just the precursor to the other and I think I side with Aristole's assessment (though not his conclusion) more anyhow. The fact that we haven't broken this perverse cycle is testament of Humanity's inherit flaw and begs a much bigger question about the many paving our own road towards extinction for the benefit of the few; because as we've seen with COVID and now Russia's cataclysmic invasion in Ukrainian and the CCP's saber rattling with Taiwan they all seem intent more than anything to bring about the collective demise of Human civilization via Nuclear War in the backdrop of the damage that climate change has wrought upon the World--much of which all Nation states has enabled. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos
machina_ex_deus 4y ago
Don't get me wrong, communism is much worst. But capitalism naturally decays into feudalism or fascism, democracy is an unstable state. You need political pressure from the people to keep a democracy, and if they are asleep or distracted by the media democracies naturally decay into this. It's not like you either have capitalism and democracy or communism and autocracy, you have capitalism with feudalism/fascism/oligopoly or communism. You've got an unstable state of democracy with capitalism in the middle which can easily decay either left or right but can hardly correct back into the middle. Funnily enough, many citizens of so called democracies which are actually no longer democracies think that just because they aren't communistic then they are democratic. Democracies allow politicians to change the law for their own elections. They allow them to consolidate power in other ways. They can be overtaken by the media. Many countries have the potential to become democracies again without violence, but it requires an understanding and education of the population that is missing, and heavy propaganda blinds them.

inglor_cz 4y ago

Behind the Iron Curtain, you had to bribe various government officials even if you were far from "the highest bidder". Sometimes the bribes were as trivial as a packet of wurst.