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Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-mor
by cs702 4y ago
Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them.
To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that have been tried from time to time. It's ruthless.
There may be a better system... but it hasn't been invented yet. For now, we must figure out how to make this horrible system -- capitalism -- be less horrible, including for all those men who now find themselves marginalized by it. If we blindly let AI-powered software "eat the world" unfettered, without humane constraints, we'd only see greater concentration of economic and political power going forward, which would likely end up in some kind of really ugly societal breakdown.
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[a] https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
EDITS: Many, necessary for more accurately articulating my thoughts.
- bobkazamakis 4y ago"deaths because of communism are entirely because of communism, but deaths because of capitalism are because you didn't pull your bootstraps hard enough"
- cs702 4y agoYes, capitalism on its own, without any kind of social and individual-rights safety net, is ruthlessly cruel. "The worst."
- sschueller 4y agoCapitalism wants you to think it's your fault but when you get sick from poisoned food and water but it's entirely the fault of the greedy capitalist that put profits over all. Sure that in true capitalism the bad actors go out of business but how many die before that happens? What do I care if people die because my actions today in 100 years, I won't be around to have to face the consequences... /s
- andsoitis 4y agoThat’s why you still need a system (government) that regulates the rules within which we play.
- 13of40 4y agoI'm struggling to interpret this. On the one hand it could be saying that from the perspective of a capitalist, we unfairly decline to assign the capitalist system blame when someone falls through the cracks. But the fundamental difference between the two systems is that the latter trades some amount of a person's autonomy for a better collective "deal". In other words, a communist society takes responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, so it also bears the responsibility when things go south and someone dies before their time. (Whether the system values that life to the same degree as the person and their family is a different question.)
- Octoth0rpe 4y agoThat's a pretty useless quote. It entirely ignores the fact the economic systems all exist on a spectrum from extreme libertarianism to complete state ownership. The question has never been capitalism versus socialism, it's always been "how much regulation do we want as a society in exchange for a higher floor in our quality of life?" (and its follow up, did that regulation actually achieve its goals?)
- cs702 4y agoI find it useful. My take from it is that capitalism requires patches to work, because otherwise it becomes too horrible for too many: "The worst."
- oneoff786 4y agoThat framing seems poorly equipped to handle things like feudalism.
- Octoth0rpe 4y agoHm. I've always thought of feudalism as a form of state ownership wrt to property/means of production, though there are definitely additional considerations re: other rights; the state in that case being the feudal estate.
- tolciho 4y agoCharles Boix in "Political Order and Inequality" posits that feudalism is a particular form of "the looters are in charge, because they can be" as contrasted with the more rare republic where there is more equality among the power-sharing producers. Republics can involve various shades of "republic at home, looters abroad" e.g. the Athens of Perilces. Republics are not very common nor large nor long-lived, at least up until the 18th century or so. Military technology and who can afford it is a big factor. More to the original topic, republics per Boix must prevent looting from the producers; this includes both external agents--"special military operations", barbarians on the frontier, foreign commercial agents who banana your republic, etc--and internal agents, who could be those welfare queens, men out of a job and certainly not looking (I mean why would you??), or plutocrats making out like bandits.
- bee_rider 4y agoI think “riff off Churchill” or “borrow from” would be helpful instead of “paraphrase,” since the quote was originally about democracy, not capitalism (mostly wanted to note this because a couple people seem to have taken as a direct quote more or less).
- cs702 4y agoGood point. I edited my comment. Thank you!
- friedman23 4y agoHow is capitalism the issue here? Under what system can people without ability to contribute magically gain the ability to contribute? Capitalism means literally everything to everyone, it's absurd at this point.
- thesuitonym 4y agoWhen the whole world is run by capital, your contributions are only measured by how they help capital. There are ways to contribute to society that don't pay the bills. And in any case, socialist countries don't outsource labor.