Capitalism is self-annihilating, not self-perpetuating

[Melz2]

Bad joke was bad; I own it.

[anon32019413]

It’s not that I’m all that for capitalism, but I’m against central planning. It’s been my beef with the Soviet model (central planning, one-party, etc) and where I find libertarianism appealing as a concept despite its severe flaws.

[Boundegar]

Nonsense. They’re still going to need a few million of us to till the soil and scrub their bathtubs. It’s just the other 99% who are surplus.

[coherent_light]

You don’t understand. Without the Earth, all colonies elsewhere will fail.

All.

Thinking otherwise is purely magical thinking, and you might as well bankroll time travel.

[AnthonyI]

Is an asteroid colony even possible? The gravity is so low that just a little bunny hop could send a person tumbling into the abyss.

[Melz2]

@coherent_light

You don’t understand. Without the Earth, all colonies elsewhere will fail.

Yeah… Oxygen, potable water, food, medicine… all resources that humans need to survive, but which are not naturally found on Mars. Which means that it would all need to be exported up there, on a regular basis.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Pensketch]

“For a limited time, and one low payment, you can be free from Capitalism!”

I wonder if that will become a new variation of the 419 scam?

[atl]

I’m a Marxist in this sense: I am busting my arse to replace labor with capital. Namely my own labor with my own capital.

[generic_name]

@jandrese

The solution isn’t to throw the baby out with the bathwater, it is to have an external entity, and really the only one big enough is the government, tax the shit out of the top of the market and re-inject that wealth back at the bottom. Straight up redistribution. No sugar coating it. If you are a billionaire you are just plain too rich. Either spend that money like a madman or the government takes it and spends it for you on social programs for the poor and middle class.

I agree. Unfortunately the other aspect of capitalism is that more money equals more power and thus more control of the government, so you can manipulate the laws to your own benefit. In the USA it’s not “one man, one vote” it’s “one dollar, one vote.”

[MaiqTheLiar]

Space Force, SPACE FORCE, SPACE FORCE!!!

damn it(?)

[anon61833566]

No no…I liked the joke! It’s actually a double entendre…that the current guy is a commander in chief IS some sort of epic cosmic joke!!!

[anon61221983]

@elliotk

Maybe we’re the issue, not capitalism.

Capitalism is a social relation, it doesn’t exist outside of us.

[Brian_Shock]

Is there a downvote button here? No? I didn’t think so.

I really need a downvote button for this one. I know that a more constructive response would be to reply to someone’s lecture in Libertarianism with reasonable questions. But when you simply assert that markets are an unmatched way of distributing goods and take for granted that everyone agrees with you on what a “market” is or should be… yeah, no thanks. He, she, or it doesn’t get near enough to the important discussions on this topic even to qualify as having a valid difference of opinion.

So downvote.

[jandrese]

Maybe you can provide an example of a system that has been used in real life at nontrivial scales to distribute resources that has been more efficient than a market? People have tried a lot of different schemes, but they always breed corruption and break down.

History has not been kind to alternative solutions.

[Melz2]

@Brian_Shock

Is there a downvote button here? No? I didn’t think so.

You can always just say that you are disappointed.

[anon47741163]

There’s nothing particularly new about this insight, Bucky Fuller was pointing out this imperative 60 years ago.

I think the stakes have risen in that time. When capitalism cannot keep itself from turning the planets’ life support into unwanted junk, survival itself becomes an issue.

It’s a bidding process: capital can be used to bid someone higher (raise their wage, cover their healthcare, put them on the supreme court) or bid them down (outsource their job, sell off their pension plan, eliminate bathroom breaks)…

But that’s only useful for specific players, capitalism cannot bid up all humanity, there has to be losers in order for there to be winners. It thinks this is a zero sum game, but it’s actually a negative sum game, since the externalities keep piling up. There’s no way to make money if all the bads and dishonors are kept track of as well as the goods and services.

Micheal Albert’s Participatory Economics has been my go-to alternative to capitalism since I found out about it in the 90s. My fear is that people are too beaten down any more to even wish for a better way to do it.

[JonS]

@jandrese

Maybe you can provide an example of a system that has been used in real life at nontrivial scales to distribute resources that has been more efficient than a market?

I don’t know what they’re technically called, but the economies the US and UK ran from ~1939 through to ~1945 were non-trivial, and distributed resources effectively and efficiently, far better than a market economy could have in those particular circumstances.

People have tried a lot of different schemes, but they always breed corruption and break down.

Sure, and the point of the OP is that capitalism is doing exactly that - breeding corruption, and breaking down - too.

[Melz2]

@JonS

the economies the US and UK ran from ~1939 through to ~1945

*winces

Wartime economy.

[JonS]

well, yeah?

[Melz2]

Just sayin’; it was not exactly an idyllic time, in either country’s history.