liberal capitlism can both be considered a “failure” (the system isn’t achieving its stated aims) and also “doing what it was designed to do” (the system is doing what it’s aims were to do) because its stated aims were always contradictory.
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It's capitalism, it doesn't really have any 'aims'. It's better than Monarchism, but it's the same in that the positives are justifications.
Capitalism is meant to be the best way to make societies productive, and Liberal is meant to mitigate it. Neither of these are really aims, or true anymore
the true believers are kind of like real tankies. They are convinced that someone cracked the code in some foreign mystical past, and we just have to get back there
It could be argued it's worse because it doesn't even offer the fig leaf of Noblis Oblige capitalists have no duty to protect or support those they exploit even nominally.
The most annoying thing is that the high school level version of modern capitalism has Fordism and Keynesianism happening because of what happens when capitalism is not controlled.
Especially since we are in the 20s
I generally agree with you but the current era of neoliberalism is markedly different from the previous progressive era. It was considered nonsense for much of the 20th century that encouraging wealthy people to be greedy was good for everyone, but that idea gained credence after the 70s collapse.
The idea of capital being the marker of success was always going to lead here. The collapses every other decade are caused by the wealthy getting greedy and more powerful. After W axed everything, those of us who already knew this were expecting this level of collapse.
I’m not arguing that it isn’t the inevitable outcome of fetishization of capital above anything else but the fetishization of abject greed is pretty unique to neoliberalism.
In other countries it’s
Better regulated and works pretty well. Denmark, Norway, the Nordic model.
Health & Education r taxpayer supported, safety net, market economy with guardrails.
Totally get what you're saying, but I think it's more of *how* Capitalism is used in the United States. Capitalism can, and should, lift people up and give them a better life. But when used for evil, it strips the working class of their wealth, health and time.
if all the powerful people are just nice guys then capitalism works OK. Distrubute responsibility and ownership to the masses. more resistant to corruption
After exploiting it for 400 years? Where WASPs "seized" the means of production for capitalism? How can it do better where every institution created in this country benefited from being a white man? The 13th amendment codified slavery into law via private prisons.
Maybe that's the issue here. You guys are fixated on social justice and laws and somehow think that is the same as the Economy and Capitalism? Would make a lot of sense.
Again the right kind of capitalism is the kind where only white men are allowed to fully participate. You want to act like rights don't come into it, but that's obviously ridiculous. Pretending that the country wasn't built on and still run on slave labor is ahistorical.
The US right now is the wrong kind. Capitalism is being used for wealth extraction and not wealth creation. It's what I said an hour ago and people have been screaming at me ever since.
Capitalism is a system of resource allocation it's just a really shitty one that will always result in the people who least need the resources having more than they can ever use.
why do people need to toil for a better life? why do they need to earn it, or justify deserving it? what if we just gave it to them? why were they needing to be lifted up to begin with?
it just kinda falls apart when you look at the logic of it
The US Republic is working exactly as our founding founders planned. They just never imagined that the "poor" would band with the billionaires to give an the total power to the elites, and cheer enthusiasticly as policies that are against their self interests are implemented on a daily basis.
Hmmm, I'm not familiar with these "aims" whereof you speak. If by "aims" you mean the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, then I'd understand better. Have these goals been reach? Not yet. Will they be reached under any other form of government? No way.
BRICS has surpassed the G7 in global GDP share—proof that U.S. economic dominance is fading. The era of American capitalism, propped up by debt, imperialism, and financialization, is ending. The US is obviously, publicly collapsing under the weight its own contradictions
Truthfully, even though I have nothing great to say about capitalism, I think you are right. The major issue right now is the US mentality towards capitalism and greed. Most of us view capitalism as a religion. We think faith in it will solve anything stupid. Including treating greed as a virtue.
I don't know why liberals are so resistant to socialism. It's just taking the promises of liberalism, the supposed freedoms and privileges once reserved for royalty down to more people. Socialism can be seen through the lens of simply updating liberalism to make it's promises real, materially.
Because the actual basis of liberalism is ECONOMIC liberty. The social justice causes are just marketing. It's like an DOD recruiter telling you "Oh, you like music! Hey, did you know the Army has a marching band? You could play for them!"
I think that's basically the thesis of this book. I haven't read it yet though, only heard an interview with the author. (It's on libgen if you don't want to shell out the $50)
I think if they weren't resistant to socialism, they wouldn't be liberals, they'd be socialists. Despite some shared goals, liberalism exists as a reaction against socialism. It's the capitalist alternative to socialism.
#BlueCapitalism k!lling us slightly slower than #RedCapitalism isn't the flex 💪 the #BlueMagaCult thinks it is. 🤔 Pimping Fracking was the last straw 🤦♀️🙄
In real life, nothing is perfect; liberal as a word has many definitions; and ppl who discuss these issues ad infinitum are college freshmen or ppl w/ economic privilege. I find it interesting when ppl who discuss capitalism disparagingly also muse abt topics like "being a landlord is difficult."
The phrase "the purpose of a system is what it does" is so useful. If something consistently fails at its stated purpose, then its stated purpose isn't its actual purpose and is therefore irrelevant.
It should be noted, like all machines built over centuries by many different hands out of the scattered remains of very different systems, none of it has to make sense. It just needs to produce the outputs that the ones running it want. Your freedom might be a byproduct, one that can be used
For other ends, or curtailed and redirected, or discarded. So long as the ones operating the machines want for that end and can reconfigure it in a way to do so, they can do so.
So the failure of liberal capitalism to solve all human problems, while achieving its aims of raising the living standards and personal freedom of billions proves it's not up to the quality of e.g. Communist solutions? That's that's your story?
Pay attention. The success of capitalism at exacerbating every problem it comes into contact with, while raising the living standards, but not conditions for billions, proves it has succeeded in failing humanity because it was designed to do so. Communism doesn't factor into that.
For example: It is a failure because it is not reducing inequality which is one of the stated aims of the ideology. It is doing what it is designed to do because it is protecting the market and private property.
I only bring this up because sometimes depending on who I am talking to I find it more useful to say things like: yes liberalism aimed to produce more equality but we can measurably say that it hasn’t. And the reason for this is because of the underlying economic system.
We are carrion for oligarchs, monopolists, and kleptocratic politicians—picked clean by legalized corruption, stripped of wealth, rights, and a future. They monopolize everything: resources, labor, even democracy itself. This isn’t a system—it’s a controlled demolition for their profit.
Rush Limbaugh managing to brand liberal as "anything to the left of Sauron" has been, unfortunately, one of the greatest rhetorical coups of the 20th century
Yes. This is precisely the problem. I don't go in for dogma, and I don't believe in utopia, but it has become increasingly apparent that no matter how well-meaning some liberal politicians are, the power of capital is both transcendent and utterly, almost supranaturally, cowardly and self interested
I understand the liberal goal of reducing inequality between what the ideology considers “people” successful in that it only considers as “people” the political and capitalist classes. They are now the same. The working class is something other & is dealt with as the colonial other: w fascist means
💯. Essentially the USA GOP is liberal capitalism in words and paperwork.
That's why the "PRO LIFE" team cheers school shooters, harasses parents whose children were murdered, encourages rampant disease and destitution, steals everything from everyone, and makes it easier for pregnant women to die.
No, we absolutely do not live in global capitalism. I am starting to wonder if you have literally any experience whatsoever outside of whatever country you are from.
I keep saying this, but one of the biggest criticisms of liberalism by the left the last 15 years is that they aren't doing liberalism good. Like I'm not a fan of liberal politics, but we wouldn't be dealing with half the shit we are now if the fucking liberals just did liberalism good
Like if you define modern liberal politics as the idea that a strong central state can control and regulate the worst excesses of private ownership of the things necessary for society to reproduce itself, then it has been a miserable failure
My opinion of capitalism is that it can work to create equality, and the fact that it’s never produced the desired results very long or very well doesn’t prove that it’s a bad idea or system.
Buddy if you can't answer that question for yourself while living in the current reality it's actually okay for you to just not share any opinions on politics
Log off, read some books, just pay basic attention, then maybe try again (or not)
Do you think capitalism will naturally start producing the result you want if it's given more time, or do you think that it needs to be nudged in that direction? If so, what form do you believe that nudge needs to take?
I think the biggest culprit is that humans tend toward false dilemmas and obsessions with purity.
We tend to think that if a thing has problems, then either the opposite thing is the best,
OR that all the problems is because we just didn’t do the thing HARDCORE enough.
Capitalisms goal is to secure future resources for capitalists by reinvesting profits made from suppressed wages, perpetually alienating workers from a secured future for themselves. If it wasn't profits over people, they wouldn't be able to balance the ledger. Capitalism actually prevents equality.
When you talk about "capitalism's goal," what exactly do you mean?
"Capitalism" isn't an entity; it has no desires on its own, so it cannot have any goals.
Do you mean "the goal of every private business?"
Or "the goal of every government that allows private business?"
Or something else?
ok, let's concede to a semantic argument.. if you sibstitute the ethereal 'capitalism' for the concrete 'capitalist' (the one supplying the finds [capital]), does any part of the argument change? no.
all it does is point out the nature of inequality more clearly.
What usually leftists are talking about is design structures based on pressures created by a system. We often personify these as "goals", as a way to quickly communicate this material way of looking at things. It is not anyones "goal" as in a direct desire for a person. But rather the end
capitalism cannot create equality because the people with the most money make the rules, and they will always make the rules in a way that benefits themselves
if one capitalist ever tried to create equality, the other capitalists would end them
1. While I agree that in practice, this is how things tend to turn out, I don't believe that "the people with the most money make the rules" is a necessary part of capitalism; it could--and should--be done away with.
2. Under a communist society, who makes the rules?
If you had a government/economic system with so many guard rails on its capitalism there was no significant wealth disparity, it wouldn't really be capitalism anymore
the power in a capitalist economy vests in the people who own and control capital, i.e. the means of production. how can you have sustainable equality when power is shared so unequally?
the idea underpinning capitalism is that whoever owns the means of production deserves the wealth created therefrom. this is a fundamentally psychotic way to design an economy
This is my view a bit. I agree with OP largely, but capitalism is basically "that which survives, survives" mixed with some memetic/organizational recombination. That's extremely similar to evolution, which leads to wonders and horrors. We breed animals, why not companies? Hard to throw it away.
One of the fundamental assumptions of the early capitalist economists (Ricardo, Smith) was that in the time that they lived capital was almost totally immobile, and labor was highly mobile. If you didn't like your factory job in England you could just leave and go to France
I think you mean neo-liberal capitalism? Because liberalism promotes individual rights, civil liberties, and democracy, free enterprise is supported only insofar as it balances against those concerns. Thus liberal capitalism will be regulated where needed to safeguard and further social aims.
Neoliberal capitalism is designed specifically to neuter all of those things. It is a machine that only produces Trumps and Musks and is fueled by the blood and labor of real people.
Exactly. Neo-liberalism is about deregulation at pretty much any cost. That's what Reagan ushered in when he cut income taxes and preached the "greed is good" philosophy.
Liberalism, on the other hand, embraces regulation to ensure capitalism serves the needs of society and social priorities.
Fire isn't designed to heat homes and will burn the homes down if given the chance. That doesn't mean it can't be harnessed.
Capitalism exploits the powerful forces of greed to enable productivity. Uncontrolled it'll scorch everything, but properly contained it can be used for societal good.
Perhaps capitalism does make sense if you compare it to an entire different order of reality itself. Any good that comes out of capitalism is in spite of itself, and only a trace of the good that we'd all have if it wasn't for capitalism being there in the first place.
Other, smarter people can school you on economic theory. I will laugh at you for either suggesting fire is designed or thinking capitalism is a natural product of the universe.
Even assuming life as part of capital's labor class is great (and it is definitely better than a lot of other situations), surely you can see the inherent instability there, right? You have an owner class with more power; of course they'll use that to secure their position and gain even more power
Promotes the free rights for who though? Because where I'm sitting the only right I have is to make money for others. I can't access many of the systems that one can use to exercise their rights because your access to these "right" are controlled by access to wealth.
I I have the right to vote but I have to work 60 hours to afford to live do I really have the right to vote? Do I really have the right to housing and food if my access is controlled by my wealth? Do I really have free speech and freedom of the press when I have to pay for a permit to exercise them?
If my ability to access my rights is determined by my ability to participate in the market and I am systematically blocked from entering the market do I really have access to the rights people say I do?
The only difference is where the excess wealth goes. Sure, unfettered capitalism can see wealth concentration hurt a population but literally nobody here is advocating for unfettered capitalism. The problems you're highlighting can be solved by simpler means than upending the planet.
liberalism values private property. it cannot be said to actually want any kind of true equality while calling for the private ownership of capital and for housing and food not to be guaranteed rights. you cannot have an equal society when a sizeable minority of your society freeze or starve.
That's why liberals find a workable balance between concerns, as embodied in a mixed economic system that limits free market capitalism via regulation while using tax revenues to redistribute wealth to ensure people don't freeze and starve. Some services are even socialized, like public education.
The “founding fathers” were all Classical Liberals who jerked off to Locke, Smith, and Hume and extolled the virtues of individual rights and democracy - and yet built an entire nation upon chattel slavery and colonial genocide. Those virtues were only ever applied to wealthy white property owners.
Incremental progress. The needle doesn't move to perfection overnight or even within a generation. Even if every founding father was as left-wing as you could get, the population at the time would never have accepted more than what they did.
The needles is slamming into the red bit of the gauge labeled fascism. The Democratic Party is nothing more than a little palette cleanser needed every couple of cycles to ensure there are enough gullible liberals to support the crushing of any ideas that could actually halt the fascist slide.
A liberal political economy *requires* labor and resource exploitation from top to bottom, and the maintenance of a permanent underclass. It cannot exist without it. The ideological justifications of freedom and democracy are entirely post-facto.
Every system can be framed as exploitative in some way. It's dishonest to pretend otherwise. The point is to have a system that mitigates it and compensates in such a way that nobody is left to suffer.
You misunderstand: exploitation is an *intrinsic* aspect of a capitalist mode of production. In order for an owner of a business (or an ownership class) to achieve profitability, they MUST pay their workers a fraction of the value that their labor adds to the product or service.
They were more illiberal than the English monarchy at the time, which was moving quickly to abolish slavery in the colonies. But they understood that their vision for a nation state could not be constructed without a source of self-replicating free labor, and mass expropriation of land.
Painting them all with the same brush smacks of ignorance right out of the gate. There were abolitionists among the founding fathers, you know. But they dealt with the same urban/rural ideological divides then that we do today and compromise was necessary to get all the states' ratifications.
Aside from this being ahistorical nonsense, it also completely negates what you said before about “the population would have never accepted more than what they did.” The presence of abolitionists, ongoing slave revolts and resistance, indicates a general acknowledgment of the immorality of slavery.
Except the states that would be the most prosperous and would indeed go on to militarily crush the states reliant on this form of labor due to their higher free population and industrial output.
So, to the extent that some of the founders thought this, they were wrong
Even your own neoliberal heroes disagree with you.
"For too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible."
Market liberalism is literally a dictatorship of capital. You live under autocracy and coercion, but your ideological blinders will never allow you to see that.
MLK, Jr. also begrudgingly understood that incremental progress was all that could work in America. Having to split the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into different bills exemplified that. If he rejected incremental progress then nothing would have been achieved when it was.
“Incremental progress”. Bruh. They never intended for the working class to have the same rights as them. They were specifically writing for the capitalist elite. It’s ahistorical and plain wrong to read Jefferson and think he’s talking about someone in the work-houses or a slave.
hard to tell really considering they went out of their way to create anti-democratic institutions like SCOTUS that served only to empower America's landed gentry
77 million people just voted for an obvious fascist and 90 million didn't care enough to oppose his ascent, even as he promised to go after political rivals and decimate the government.
It's pretty fucking clear where the needle's at and which direction it's going. Not only in the US but the world.
who the fuck is this for??? norms and decorum drunk losers who want to keep losing? liberalism is dead, it’s actively killing you. your pomp and circumstance civility won’t save you.
Oh I see, you've defined and redefined the word liberal so it means everything you think is good about liberalism and nothing you think is bad despite the fact that none of your actual politicians have ever been the good liberals.
No redefining. Social liberalism is a branch of liberalism in opposition to other branches, such as in economic regulation. Just like there are opposing branches of democracy, Marxism, etc.
When you condemn a general ideology as though it's exclusively one branch, you're in the wrong.
Social liberalism doesn't exist and has never existed. There have been no socially liberal politicians. You saw classic liberals get their teeth kicked in by socialists over social issues, forced to move left on those issues, and mistook that synthesis position as a unique type of liberalism.
That's the source of practically all modern economies which mix ideas from capitalism and socialism in different measures. Excesses of capitalism are mitigated and compensated for so Marx's observations of contradictions don't grow so extreme as to require revolution.
Capitalism hasn't changed, there's just been enough time for the liberals (neo- or otherwise) to slowly chip away at safeguards, social programs, and the very concept of government not being the same as business.
Definitions are fine but how does that vague glossy ideal translate to the real world? What would you say the functional difference is between "liberal" and "neoliberal?" This feels like a true-Scotsman fallacy.
Liberalism rots, and always bows to fascism. Historically, capitalism eventually wins.
Its translation is incredibly apparent in the real world. Minimum wage laws, unions, labor laws, etc. are all results of liberalism. And they're all things neoliberals seek to end.
At best that's a Nordic social democracy. The contradictions there is that they can't deal with incel men with resentment about a stagnating economy, precarious trade with Russian natural gas, and outright xenophobia towards migrants. If you enter the EU as a non white person it hits you in the face
No doubt. Europe is falling to much the same propaganda techniques as the US, with strongmen autocrat wannabes exploiting (and even fabricating) social tensions to turn populations towards the far-right.
But that's the thing, you can't just propagandize a population into fascism without underlying instability and resentment. American liberalism failed to stop Trump, and it's looking that EU/nordic social democracy is failing to address the conditions that lead to fascism.
The conditions that lead to fascism need only be human conditions; jealousy, greed, doubt, a lack of a sense of belonging, any kind of sense of insecurity. All of those things can be preyed upon by propagandists. Real issues like poverty just make the propaganda easier to sell.
Hey guy, an American flag software engineer here calling out irrational and hypocritical criticisms and those only. The US economic system has been getting progressively more fucked for the past 50 years and there's plenty of legitimate criticisms. I only call out the irrational ones.
No, it's pretty bad. It's been increasingly fucked since Reagan. It needs a lot of work. But to communism can be shoved down the US's throat as a miracle cure is utterly, completely irrational. And that's what these criticisms seem to amount to; "it's bad because it isn't communism".
here's the thing, dave! you're not in a position of expertise to claim anything is legitimate or illegitimate criticism. i don't go to your job and tell you your code is stupid
Which is why liberals don't believe in completely free enterprise. That's more a neo-liberal thing. Liberals accept and even encourage regulation of business to both mitigate its excesses and turn protection towards social priorities.
Liberty, itself, can be a threat to liberty if not constrained. This is why people aren't free to kill, or steal, or endanger others on public roads. We constrain freedoms all the time to help ensure maximum freedom for everyone.
Neo-liberalism has distinct priorities in the form of emphasizing free market economics. Conversely, social liberalism emphasizes the societal priorities. To be fair, my description is more so that of social liberalism.
Nothing about this largely semantic distinction negates anything I said about liberal capitalism and its observed tendencies and underlying political economic philosophy. I was not talking about an abstract conception of social liberalism. Thanks
Not when it helps harness productivity and wealth that then helps to ensure resources are available to ensure everyone can have food on their plate and a place to live.
I often equate capitalism to fire. When properly harnessed its a powerful tool. When not, it can burn society to the ground.
Democracy and capitalism are incompatible. If you give workers democratic control over their workplaces they'll fire the capitalists. Capitalism only survives by pretending that democracy is somehow the perfect system for governing a country but terrible for governing actual economy activity.
And yet they've coexisted together for over a century in every democratic country on the planet. True, the ideas have conflicting elements but that doesn't mean a balance can't be struck between them.
Lots of contradictory things coexist. Misogyny and feminism have coexisted for over a century all over the planet. All that tells you is that humans are diverse and contradictory. It doesn't mean that the two things have any common ground.
The scale, causes, and methods can almost all be cleanly tracked back to conservative and Republican social and economic positions that liberals and Democrats have been trying to fight back against for decades. And with the courts overturning precedence, we're actually backsliding farther.
What does the last week tell us?
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Bonespurs has no brain.
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Republicans have no spine.
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Pres. Musk is nervously itchy and twitchy.
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MAGAts slowed their egg consumption.
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Sen. McConnell has .024 oz. of soul left.
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Putin has an erection.
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Laws no longer matter.
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America is fucked. For good.
Liberal capitalism has been the single greatest force for improving the lives of the average person that has ever existed in human history. Your claim is so devoid of any perspective it is truly mind boggling.
Its stated aim is to bring about inequality. Inequality has increased. I’m not saying capitalism is less advanced than feudalism. I’m saying it’s exasperating wealth inequality. And we should aim to create a society that does not do that.
Capitalism is great when it's balanced with some socialism. No single system on its own is going to work for the most people, most of the time. America's unique brand of capitalism is a colossal failure, not because it's capitalism, but because it's so wildly unbalanced against the common good.
Exactly! Capitalism is bad for some people (like the workers) but great for other people (people who contribute nothing of use and prey on the poor). It's all about balancing the right amount of capitalism to serve both those groups.
We live in a global economy. There is no country in this world that doesn’t rest on massive exploitation on a global scale, and no, more equitably redistributing the spoils of the world in a Nordic country doesn’t count as socialism. And neoliberalism is chipping at those places anyway.
Capitalism seeks profit generation. As long as you have a ruling class they will try to expand profits (deregulate, control politics, ideology, labor protections). This kind of viewpoint overlooks the fundamental contradictions and its tendency to erode any social protections that limit profit.
For profit Markets cannot exist alongside strong social programs without conflict. Regulations and government intervention cannot permanently correct capitalism’s excesses. Capitalism cannot be reformed to prioritize the common good. These are objective facts.
You aren't wrong. But you leave out the fact that there's no such thing -- and there has never been any such thing -- as a society without a ruling class. I guess the real question is what kind of ruling class do you want to have, and what constraints do you want to put on it?
this kind of argument, for me, only shows how limited is the imagination of some... and the dependency on going back to what has been done instead of trying something new.
A more accurate description of the left's perspective: capitalism is *anti-democratic* in practice, and the pretense of liberal democracy conceals a de-facto dictatorship of the capitalist class. Lib democracy is democracy for the rich and upper middle class only, the actual demos have little say.
We believe that socialism is *true* democracy, i.e. rule by and for the masses. Given the overwhelming majority of humans is working-class, a dictatorship of the working class is necessarily more democratic than a capitalist dictatorship.
Liberalism, under a Marxist framework, is considered an ideological product of the underlying material realities under capitalism, where a property-rich minority literally dictates production and other economic activity to the propertyless majority.
Liberalism is the post-facto justification for the inequality that inevitably emerges under capitalism: the propertied class using their wealth to act with impunity is reframed as "liberty" and wage labor under the implied threat of starvation and homelessness is depicted as "voluntary".
There will not be a better system or government that arises from the ashes of our democracy, and many of my leftist peers seem to forget that Napoleon followed the French revolution:
I'm asking because I feel there's a lot of my leftist peers that conflate democracy as capitalistic in nature, just because it started as capitalist and turned into neo-liberalism.
I rarely see people point out a huge internal flaw: that by the dictum of its own framework, it is inherently blameless.
It does not self-correct. It does not self-regulate. It does not self-examine. Any inequalities produced are the fault of the victims because they didn't "do it right." 😮💨
Capitalism can only work with strong regulation, progressive taxation, and a real social safety net. We would have that except White Americans weren't willing to share with others.
IF THE PEASANTS WOULD LEARN THEIR PLACE THERE SHOULD BE NO NEED OF THE MORE STRIKING FORMS OF SLAVERY.
AT THE RATE OF THINGS, MY WEALTH WILL BE SPENT IN MY LIFETIME AND MY GRANDCHILDREN WILL HAVE NO MONEY FOR MAIDS AND BUTLERS, AND BOY WILL THOSE BE IRRITATIBLE WITHOUT CARAMEL MOCHA LATTES
THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE WORKING LABOROUR IS NO LONGER SATISFIED WITH ROOTS AND COARSE GRAIN, AND WATER FOR HIS DRINK, AS WAS CUSTOMARY SOME TIME AGO. NOW HE DEMANDS CHEESE, AND BREAD, AND TO LIVE IN A STRUCTURE THAT MEETS ELECTRICAL CODE
To add to this, liberal capitalism will always be replaced by either fascism or socialism through revolution, because it does not resolve the contradictions between the classes and these contradictions will only intensify.
I wish more Marxists realized that Marx died 50 years before Fascism was even a thing, and a more likely resolution to late stage capitalism than a socialist revolution
Fascism is always worth fighting, because when fascism falls, it's replaced by liberalism and the circle begins anew
I say it's more likely, because in addition to the fascist themselves, the ones made wealthy by liberal capitalism will side with them over any form of leftism, even in its most moderate forms
Marxism is good, but the determinism is a fatal flaw in Marx's writings
Some people on the far left seems to think that no matter who's in charge, eventually the people will magically rise up and accept their views as 100% correct
To quote Ernst Thälmann - leader of the German communists, "After Hitler, our turn".
Marx identified a kind of proto-fascism, described as German (true) socialism. Also it was Engles who claimed that civilization will fork towards either barbarism or civilization, which did eventually resolve with the failure of the Spartacist uprising.
this is why you see stancilites look at a chart showing them a quarter of the working class are perpetually immiserated and insist the trendline is slightly downward, thus nothing needs to be addressed! line go down!
Hey look commie, those filthy peons make 2 groats a fortnight what's more important is that this is the best economy we've ever had, when you average in billionaires. Why, the market in Pinkerton strikebreakers alone is booming!
To be fair, only a quarter of the working class being in poverty is pretty good relative to history.
Used to be that ninety percent of people (all people, not just the working class, a minority in america) were poor and still had to grow most of their own food.
they get some plausible deniability from fear of the greater evil + learned helplessness wrt changing the candidates course but the latter blew up when many turned on joe over bad debate performance and the former now also as they take joy in the plight of vulnerable 'traitors'
some of the replies make me think people (not you) are mixed up about what "liberal" means in this context
economic liberalism primarily refers to free markets without extensive state interference. when Democrats are called "liberal," this is a reference to their stances on social issues
some Republicans call themselves "classical liberals" due to the first definition
"neoliberalism" is a policy approach meant to *produce* economic liberalism through extensive government intervention to reform markets and institutions
i know that's all really a sidebar to the main topic here, with which i fully agree: economic liberalism has been a failure at generating stable, broad-based prosperity. it has been very effective, however, at producing dramatic wealth inequality.
Good explanation, but I think the phrase 'economic liberalism' has been superseded and now just causes confusion. I think 'libertarian' and 'neoliberal' are now more commonly used.
i agree, that's why i don't ever use "liberalism" to refer to economic policy... but a lot of people and literature do, so it's important to know the difference when you see it!
the aim of capitalism is profit, without consciousness, and they always achieve it;
however, the price is inequality, and inequality leads to a lack of social peace;
that lead to fascism;
All this has been well-known for decades due to the studies on the 1929 crisis;
It's not liberal capitalism, it's pirate capitalism or vulture capitalism, but there is nothing liberal about it other than it is done freely. Liberal capitalism would be more socialistic in nature and benefit the greatest number with the greatest good. It clearly is conservative capitalism.🍸🧐🚬
Ultimately, where the purpose of government is to "promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty," the government has failed by refusing to provide for the necessities of life--housing, food, education, health care, etc.--and allowing those to be commodified on a profit model.
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Capitalism is meant to be the best way to make societies productive, and Liberal is meant to mitigate it. Neither of these are really aims, or true anymore
Especially since we are in the 20s
Obama gave me hope, but nope.
Better regulated and works pretty well. Denmark, Norway, the Nordic model.
Health & Education r taxpayer supported, safety net, market economy with guardrails.
(Also, Denmark is super-duper racist. Even Poland 10 years ago weren't much worse)
New Public Management has eroded the Nordic model since it was introduced in the 90s - our baseline was just higher than in the rest of the world
The U.S. needs to do better.
https://bsky.app/profile/merkjones.bsky.social/post/3li7krdq2ec26
It's a tool. Nothing more.
Maybe that's the issue here. You guys are fixated on social justice and laws and somehow think that is the same as the Economy and Capitalism? Would make a lot of sense.
Would be nice if they actually read what I post.
But damn, the UE had the right kind of capitalism for generations! I'll add "super fucking racist and even more deluded" to my notes and move on.
Lmao.
It fell apart in the 80s, tried to come back in the 90s but has been used for evil basically ever since.
That's barely 1. (And also definitely extremely fucked up to say.)
The answer may just surprise you!
it just kinda falls apart when you look at the logic of it
Liberalism, by definition, embraces capitalism.
vs.
what it is designed to do
#CapitalismKills
#CapitalismSucks
#CapitalismDestroys
Big if true
🤷♂️
😁👍
That's why the "PRO LIFE" team cheers school shooters, harasses parents whose children were murdered, encourages rampant disease and destitution, steals everything from everyone, and makes it easier for pregnant women to die.
Which is how many people feel about communism.
Log off, read some books, just pay basic attention, then maybe try again (or not)
capitalism is rooted in slavery and the slave patrol still rides with the same star proudly displayed
I disagree about capitalism being rooted in slavery, but that shouldn't come as a shock.
capitalism still operates off slavery
:D
We tend to think that if a thing has problems, then either the opposite thing is the best,
OR that all the problems is because we just didn’t do the thing HARDCORE enough.
Many systems can benefit from markets and free trade, but that doesn't make them capitalist systems.
For starts, "creating equality" is a term which is always relative to what existed before, and what exists alternatively.
A system which allows everybody to accumulate capital creates more equality than a system in which only some are allowed to, for example.
You either have it or you don't
And everybody already CAN accumulate capital. You just have to exploit others to do it, and not particularly care about that aspect of it.
"Capitalism" isn't an entity; it has no desires on its own, so it cannot have any goals.
Do you mean "the goal of every private business?"
Or "the goal of every government that allows private business?"
Or something else?
all it does is point out the nature of inequality more clearly.
https://bsky.app/profile/boobburger.bsky.social/post/3li3suwszpk2g
if one capitalist ever tried to create equality, the other capitalists would end them
2. Under a communist society, who makes the rules?
so landlords can do nothing, and get rich, and the poor must work to pay rent
a system where nobody could own another person's home would be ideal
When money talks loudest, anybody who can get money has a voice.
One of the fundamental assumptions of the early capitalist economists (Ricardo, Smith) was that in the time that they lived capital was almost totally immobile, and labor was highly mobile. If you didn't like your factory job in England you could just leave and go to France
One of the fundamental assumptions of how markets would be self balancing is just totally untrue
your opinion is very stupid
I disagree, of course, but we don't have to agree on everything.
have better opinions next time
Liberalism, on the other hand, embraces regulation to ensure capitalism serves the needs of society and social priorities.
Capitalism exploits the powerful forces of greed to enable productivity. Uncontrolled it'll scorch everything, but properly contained it can be used for societal good.
It's like all the people who condemn democracy when their actual issue is with specific implementations of direct democracy.
Where does the food come from? Who builds shelter? Who picks up the trash? Who fights fires, fixes cars, and builds microchips?
People still have to participate and labor for communism to work.
So, to the extent that some of the founders thought this, they were wrong
There are a lot of big economic and social shifts that require a population's ideology to move before politics can move. It's shitty but it's reality.
and an american flag in his name 🚩
"For too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible."
Coercion vs cooperation.
Yeah, trying to do things the moral way is usually a hell of a lot harder than doing things the immoral way.
-John Maynard Keynes.
Privilege is a hell of an insulator
It's pretty fucking clear where the needle's at and which direction it's going. Not only in the US but the world.
You might want to read up on the New Liberals and how they brought social liberalism into the mix, which today overlaps with social democracy.
When you condemn a general ideology as though it's exclusively one branch, you're in the wrong.
Seriously. Crack open a dictionary and read the definition of liberalism. I'll help.
Just look at all the safeguards politicians like Elizabeth Warren try to spearhead.
Liberalism rots, and always bows to fascism. Historically, capitalism eventually wins.
Economic regulation vs. economic deregulation.
The distinction can't get much cleaner than that.
Capitalism is also present in social liberalism but is secondary to social concerns.
That's cool
And the failure of regulation today isn't evidence that regulation can't work. It did for decades and continues to in a lot of places.
you cannot be pro-freedom and pro-market
The same can be done to free enterprise.
I often equate capitalism to fire. When properly harnessed its a powerful tool. When not, it can burn society to the ground.
Little Dave thinks class conflict is artificial and impressed by external forces upon a naturally amicable relationship between owner and worker.
Dave is doofus who walks into doorposts for fun.
the community, if you will
communism......community
wow!
stop falling for propaganda
(Take your time. The rest of the class knows the answer already.)
.
Bonespurs has no brain.
.
Republicans have no spine.
.
Pres. Musk is nervously itchy and twitchy.
.
MAGAts slowed their egg consumption.
.
Sen. McConnell has .024 oz. of soul left.
.
Putin has an erection.
.
Laws no longer matter.
.
America is fucked. For good.
don't let capitalist realism fool you
Capital then worked extremely hard to remove those constraints and capitalism allowed them to acquire the resources to do so.
What could be done to stop that?
Do you think a democracy is inherently "liberal capitalism?"
Fucking quick response, btw lol
I asked because rhetoric matters.
There will not be a better system or government that arises from the ashes of our democracy, and many of my leftist peers seem to forget that Napoleon followed the French revolution:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars_casualties
It does not self-correct. It does not self-regulate. It does not self-examine. Any inequalities produced are the fault of the victims because they didn't "do it right." 😮💨
https://youtu.be/AgQgrfGPQP0?si=zCl1rdSXlF9JbWM5
AT THE RATE OF THINGS, MY WEALTH WILL BE SPENT IN MY LIFETIME AND MY GRANDCHILDREN WILL HAVE NO MONEY FOR MAIDS AND BUTLERS, AND BOY WILL THOSE BE IRRITATIBLE WITHOUT CARAMEL MOCHA LATTES
What it's proponents think or say it does is irrelevant.
Fascism is always worth fighting, because when fascism falls, it's replaced by liberalism and the circle begins anew
Marxism is good, but the determinism is a fatal flaw in Marx's writings
To quote Ernst Thälmann - leader of the German communists, "After Hitler, our turn".
He was imprisoned in '33 and executed in '45
Even if all the leftists disappear, the ideology will be re-derived because it is a science.
With an infinite number of attempts, communism becomes an inevitability.
Used to be that ninety percent of people (all people, not just the working class, a minority in america) were poor and still had to grow most of their own food.
economic liberalism primarily refers to free markets without extensive state interference. when Democrats are called "liberal," this is a reference to their stances on social issues
"neoliberalism" is a policy approach meant to *produce* economic liberalism through extensive government intervention to reform markets and institutions
however, the price is inequality, and inequality leads to a lack of social peace;
that lead to fascism;
All this has been well-known for decades due to the studies on the 1929 crisis;