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Attributing "capitalism" to the increase of value to "shareholders" is a mischaracterization of capitalism. It's the only system that has worked for one singula
by zer8k 2y ago
Attributing "capitalism" to the increase of value to "shareholders" is a mischaracterization of capitalism. It's the only system that has worked for one singular reason:
People want more value for more work. If I work 12 hours picking potatoes and have to give 3/4 of them "according to my need" I will refuse to work. If you create fake jobs like "bolt counter" to insure 100% employment so the means can justify the ends (as communism believes) you end up with a collapsing economic system.
The current iteration of late-stage capitalism is not capitalism _at large_. It's feudalism clever disguised as an egalitarian economic system. The solution to this is not communism, it's undoing 100 years of stock-market oriented business design. We don't know what "late-stage" communism looks like simply because a revolution occurs several hundred years before it reaches that point. Not even the premiere implementers of communism, the Russians, could keep their system.
It doesn't work. In any country, in any system, with any group of people larger than 4.
- spencerflem 2y agoThat's basically the definition of capitalism- that shareholders (capital) spend their money to generate profit for themselves. Like you note thoigh, we can have a free market and democracy without that dynamic
- vhantz 2y agoIn a free market, you aim to increase your market share and push out your competitors. That's how monopoly are formed. Not by some perversion of the "pure" principles of the free market, but as a logical outcome of it. Turn back the clock to whenever you want in the course of capitalism, the same conditions with the same logic will drive you back to the same results.
- spencerflem 2y agoI agree, but theres historical examples of markets in non-capitalist systems. Graeber's Debt makes a fun point that the two are at odds even, because like you say, capital really wants monopolies, which is the opposite of a free market. So by extention, if you support a free market you must on some level reject capitalism.
- spencerflem 2y agoI find it interesting and somewhat relieving how many normal people are 'pro capitalism but anti shareholder'. Which means that its mostly an outreach and organization problem. If you are anti-shareholder you're by definition anticapitalist but you just don't know it yet. Which is why the powers that be have to pass things like this: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr5349/text/eh https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr5349/text/eh to keep people confused, and to conflate being opposed to shareholders (capitalism) with support for authoritarianism etc.
- vhantz 2y ago[dead]
- throw10920 2y ago> Every sentence in this reply is a strawman. Zero evidence or explanation provided, meaning that it's far more likely that GP is making good points that you cannot respond to. > here's an FAQ [1] that can help clarify what terms like capitalism, communism, feudalism, profit, etc. actually mean This is a lie. Marxists intentionally repurpose and distort language, especially language around markets and governance structures, to deceive others into falling for their murderous and completely infeasible ideology. These are not what those terms "actually mean" - those are how Marxists use those terms. Claiming that those are what those terms "actually mean" or that that's how other people use them is false and deceptive.
- throw10920 2y ago> The current iteration of late-stage capitalism Don't fall for the trap of accepting "late-stage capitalism" as a valid concept - it's a made-up term that has no concrete or meaningful definition and is used by Marxists to constantly move goalposts and impute bad things into our functional (if suboptimal) economic system.