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>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. > If

>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. > If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism. > Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.

ericmay 1y ago
> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it. The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  I noticed you excluded my entire post except for the parts about communism, which nobody brought up except you. I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either. Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it). After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example: > What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
  - ericmay 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
      I am confident that you are smart and capable of discussing the effects we're seeing in the article, arguably driven by late-stage capitalism (not a slogan, just 2 terms, one a noun and one an adjective, despite what you may personally believe and unconvincingly assert without evidence). I'm further confident that you can do it without bringing up "the other team". Give suggestions here. Look inward. Again: look inward. A third time: look inward. Wait! I worry what you heard was, "rant against communism yet again, argue over the meaning of terms yet again", etc. I did not say that, so please don't feel like you need to keep doing that. Instead, try to participate constructively. For example: you might suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without changing the topic to how much you dislike a given ideology. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix the issue?
- teiferer 1y ago
  > Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-distant history have embraced that to great success. "Millions dead" is just as much populistic nonsense as the equally misguided doomsday scenarios painted by hardcore haters of capitalism.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    The Nordics are highly capitalist economies with mostly private ownership of the means of production. The usage of "socialism" here is misguided. Public programs including healthcare != Socialism or Communism.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  50,000 people died by suicide in the USA in 2023. 12.8 million thought about it. 3.7 made a plan for it. 1.5 million attempted it. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html 105,000 people died by overdose in the USA in 2023. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates#Fig1 https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd... In 2023 the average daily incarceration population in the USA was 664,000. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-statistical-tables/web-report https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-s... Average daily homeless population for the USA in 2023 was 653,000. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless-assessment-report https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless... In 2023 only 86% of US households were food secure. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... The majority of US bankruptcies (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies annually. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/ It doesn't look like the USA has a healthy ideology to me. It just spreads it out to 'death by 1000 cuts' and makes everyone's' suffering invisible.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    What did Churchill say about Democracy? It's the worst except all the others? Yea. I'll take all this government mismanagement and markets over Communism and Socialism. The State is never good at managing the means of production.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Socialism isn't when the state manages the means of production, it's when the workers do. What we have now, but without 80% of the value you create getting siphoned off to lazy bums who do nothing all day and collect a fat paycheck.
      - 1y ago
- immibis 1y ago
  I guess capitalism is a failed ideology too then. Billions dead, with a B. For that matter, I guess all ideologies are failed, so maybe ideological failure is completely meaningless.
  - ericmay 1y ago
    Your conclusion doesn't follow your premise.

ericmay 1y ago

> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it. The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.

ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
I noticed you excluded my entire post except for the parts about communism, which nobody brought up except you. I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either. Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it). After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example: > What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
- ericmay 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    I am confident that you are smart and capable of discussing the effects we're seeing in the article, arguably driven by late-stage capitalism (not a slogan, just 2 terms, one a noun and one an adjective, despite what you may personally believe and unconvincingly assert without evidence). I'm further confident that you can do it without bringing up "the other team". Give suggestions here. Look inward. Again: look inward. A third time: look inward. Wait! I worry what you heard was, "rant against communism yet again, argue over the meaning of terms yet again", etc. I did not say that, so please don't feel like you need to keep doing that. Instead, try to participate constructively. For example: you might suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without changing the topic to how much you dislike a given ideology. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix the issue?
teiferer 1y ago
> Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-distant history have embraced that to great success. "Millions dead" is just as much populistic nonsense as the equally misguided doomsday scenarios painted by hardcore haters of capitalism.
- ericmay 1y ago
  The Nordics are highly capitalist economies with mostly private ownership of the means of production. The usage of "socialism" here is misguided. Public programs including healthcare != Socialism or Communism.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
50,000 people died by suicide in the USA in 2023. 12.8 million thought about it. 3.7 made a plan for it. 1.5 million attempted it. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html 105,000 people died by overdose in the USA in 2023. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates#Fig1 https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd... In 2023 the average daily incarceration population in the USA was 664,000. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-statistical-tables/web-report https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-s... Average daily homeless population for the USA in 2023 was 653,000. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless-assessment-report https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless... In 2023 only 86% of US households were food secure. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... The majority of US bankruptcies (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies annually. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/ It doesn't look like the USA has a healthy ideology to me. It just spreads it out to 'death by 1000 cuts' and makes everyone's' suffering invisible.
- ericmay 1y ago
  What did Churchill say about Democracy? It's the worst except all the others? Yea. I'll take all this government mismanagement and markets over Communism and Socialism. The State is never good at managing the means of production.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Socialism isn't when the state manages the means of production, it's when the workers do. What we have now, but without 80% of the value you create getting siphoned off to lazy bums who do nothing all day and collect a fat paycheck.
    - 1y ago
immibis 1y ago
I guess capitalism is a failed ideology too then. Billions dead, with a B. For that matter, I guess all ideologies are failed, so maybe ideological failure is completely meaningless.
- ericmay 1y ago
  Your conclusion doesn't follow your premise.