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"something socialists believe doesn't exist, human nature. Socialists believe that either human nature is inherently socialist and altruistic or they believe doesn't exist at all"
You contradict yourself between those 2 sentences.
read it.
i am not contradicting myself. I say that some socialists don't believe in human nature and some believe that human nature is inherently socialist.
>Capitalism isn't any better, as it doesn't change human nature but at least it gave people the chance to advocate for themselves and their families...
Only if they live in the global north and have a lot of money.
don't be stupid. China was about as global south as you could be. They switched to capitalism the day mao died and everybody got rich. This is an option open to the entire world but not taken because stupid stupid stupid people on the left talk capitalism down. Indeed all the remaining suffering in the world can't be laid out the door steps and stupid people on the left like you.
trust me. If you are too stupid to know that people in China were living at subsistence and today they are getting rich, a source will not mean anything to you.
Obviously China is doing better today than in 1970 just like everywhere else in the entire world. But you're claiming everyone in China is rich now, I can't find that information anywhere. Moreover the part I was responding to is the op saying people have the ability to advocate for themselves and their families. But in China they still have very little freedom to do this, unless you are one of the few billionaires.
I'm American and we have a cultural history of using the "savage cannibal" trope as a derogatory way to dehumanize cultures we viewed as less technologically or socially advanced than us.
Not a great moment on our end.
Of course it is racist. Anything with which a lefty disagrees is racist. It is amazingly stupid but that is what the left has devolved to. embarrassing and tragic.
>Only if they live in the global north and have a lot of money.
Capitalist is a necessary but not sufficient element for a society to become affluent. And even if a society is affluent, capitalism is not about providing to you on a silver platter what you consider to be the standard of living you deserve. Sorry, but you still have to haul your a$$ out of bed in the morning and go work for it.
Disagree. The historical record does indeed jave times when capitalist and feudalist powers co-existed, competed, fought wars, etc.
We can look to those times to get a general idea of how it went.
That's correlation bias. You're assuming pre-industrial capitalism would be able to compete against a fusion powered monarchy because capitalism was able to compete with mercantilism.
You need to use methodology to account for correlation, sampling, and survivorship bias when using a historical sample size of one to derive predictive analysis about the socioeconomic ramifications of a hypothetical medieval discovery of cold fusion and the novel unscientific economic systems those material conditions would produce.
Seriously, "history says it will be this way" is a non-answer. History is a historical record. Most of the time it just tells you tells you about what natural disasters, wars, inventions, memes, and psychological disorders were afflicting the populace. And a lot of the time it's intentionally destroyed.
Seriously we don't even really know what economic model the Cathars tried (or whether they had one) because they were exterminated and all their books burnt. And we had a lot of socialist peasant movements under monarchy that people don't know about because they didn't meaningfully enter the historical record due to being systematically hunted down by knights on horseback or occasionally an inquisition.
So, given all this, how can you make the assertion about a feudal society becoming wealthy if it somehow was able cold fusion?(honestly, a completely silly hypothetical)
It was intended to be silly. By inventing novel situations, the hope is to have people engage in topics from viewpoints that are less likely to elicit correlation bias. I also just like having fun.
Instead of using capitalism v socialism I used capitalism v monarchism and gave the monarchy a technological advantage in a cultural framework where they were socially endorsed to systematically kill capitalists. (Peasants often didn't like merchants. They thought haggling and trade margins were "stealing" and that they should just "pay a fair price". It was the 1600s.)
>It was intended to be silly.
I enjoy comedy and fiction as much as the next person, but I understand this sub to be about the merits of capitalism v. socialism as it relates to the **real world.**
You may want to check out the Alternate History sub in reddit?
[https://new.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/](https://new.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/)
> That's correlation bias. You're assuming pre-industrial capitalism would be able to compete against a fusion powered monarchy because capitalism was able to compete with mercantilism.
>
>
Doesn't fit the historical record. Is there any specific reason to assume anything other than approximate technological parity (as was the case in many key moments in history)?
> Seriously we don't even really know what economic model the Cathars tried
I meant to refer to Habsburg Spain during the height of its international power. During that period, the economy depended on nobility, legal privilege, and vassal relationships. It was a time when other feudalist states, such as Czarist Russia, and the Ottoman Empire were also major powers, and when the English and Dutch, who were early adopters of capitalism didn't specifically have substantial technological advantages.
> History is a historical record. Most of the time it just tells you tells you about what natural disasters, wars, inventions, memes, and psychological disorders were afflicting the populace.
There is no point in pretending as if [**economic history**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history) were not a thing. Hell, there's even a subreddit for it.
>Doesn't fit the historical record. Is there any specific reason to assume anything other than approximate technological parity (as was the case in many key moments in history)?
Eurocentrism hurts my soul.
>when the English and Dutch, who were early adopters of capitalism didn't specifically have substantial technological advantages.
I can understand that, but I would argue they had a lot of advantages and a lack of disadvantages compared to modern socialist countries. For starters, they could engage in capitalism while leaving the peasantry to subsistence farming.
Also IIRC the Dutch industrial base was kind of ridiculous GDP/Capita compared to other nations at the time, and back then the English were basically on Easy Mode Island with [Emperor's First Colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland) like two hogshead to their west.
I believe they both had relatively high levels of education at the time.
>There is no point in pretending as if economic history were not a thing. Hell, there's even a subreddit for it.
Economic history is analysis driven, not predictive. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about, except for clarifying that Galileo did not, in fact, invent cold fusion.
> Eurocentrism hurts my soul.
>
>
OK, sure. But does it hurt your Pyongyang?
OK. But seriously, technological parity between rivals is a pretty common detail throughout world history. Not just in the west.
> Also IIRC the Dutch industrial base was kind of ridiculous GDP/Capita compared to other nations at the time
There are some who would say that this was a RESULT of their economic system moreso than anything else.
> English were basically on Easy Mode Island with Emperor's First Colony like two hogshead to their west.
"*"The metric system is a tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."*"
Iunno. What if the Hussite movement held out and he fled to Czechia to flee the inquisition and helped them invent weaponry that allowed them to conquer Europe under a multicultural military-industrial christian technocratic elective monarchy which gave them access to the resources and incentives to engage in large scale systematic military research to engage in global crusades which eventually results in the discovery of electricity and cold fusion?
Yeah! It's pretty fun. They're called [thought experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment).
Normally I wouldn't come up with an explanation for *why* the cat was in the box, but you asked.
>Capitalist is a necessary but not sufficient element for a society to become affluent.
Disagree.
The historical record has plenty of moments when major capitalist powers were rivaled in terms of both wealth and power by countries with other economic systems.
It was the case during the Renaissance-era when feudalist spain was among Europe's wealthiest powers, far eclipsing countries like England and Holland, where capitalism first emerged.
It was the case during the height of the Cold War, when the Soviets briefly had the 2nd or 3rd pargest econ.
And these days, its the case with China, who despite having a trade-oriented command economy, have the 2nd largest GDP on the plantet.
>It was the case during the Renaissance-era when feudalist Spain was among Europe's wealthiest powers, far eclipsing countries like England and Holland, where capitalism first emerged.
And what happened to Spain?
>It was the case during the height of the Cold War, when the Soviets briefly had the 2nd or 3rd pargest econ.
And what happened to the USSR?
>And these days, its the case with China, who despite having a trade-oriented command economy, have the 2nd largest GDP on the planet.
And what happened to China starting in the 1980s, when they introduced a very healthy dose of capitalism into their command economy?
> China starting in the 1980s, when they introduced a very healthy dose of capitalism into their command economy?
Disagree. Myself and many other capitalists would point out that there is no version of capitalism where the economy's corporations take direct orders from the Communist Party, from CCP party commissars who mandatorily are assigned to the supervisory board of Chinese Corporates. And who give orders in accordance with executing the CCP's existing 5-year plans, while ensuring regime loyalty when it comes to issues like espionage (both corporate and strategic), and repression (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong Democracy, Tienamen, Uighurs).
And that's just the corporates. 50% of Chinese firms are actually SOEs. It means that the CCP straight OWNS half the economy, and is in a position to give direct orders to most of the other half. Which is why AI gets used against Uighurs, and why Huawei, Alibaba, and Tiktok get accused of doing the regime's dirty work.
It may be trade-oriented these days, but its still a command economy. It isn't capitalism. And the only guy I know in this sub who pretends otherwise, is also basically a Xi-worshipping CCP apologist Beijing-Bro. Not a capitalist.
> And what happened to Spain?
They had about 210-ish years where they were the most important power in Europe, while the then-capitalist nations such as Britain, Holland, and some of the Italian states were small in comparison.
Considering that the British, the major capitalist power that emerged later became a major world power in the 1760s after the 7-years war, and are still a major power today, 270 years later, that's some pretty stiff competition.
Ultimately, feudalism's main weakpoint is that its dependence on feality, specially-defined, hierarchical relationships & obligations, and loyalties is stable in the short-run, but is subject to instability around issues of succession in the long-run.
In the case of Spain, an absolute monarchy lead eventually to Charles II, a king who was so inbred that he was cognitively and physically disabled, unable to run his various kingdoms and viceroyalties, and died without any heirs, which kicked-off a 14-year long game of thrones, which both separated Spain from its German, Italian and Benelux territories, where Spain had actually invested its wealth from the Americas (cities like Brussels, Antwerp, Vienna, and Utrecht, in particular were cities where Spanish gold had been invested), and also left the Spanish throne to be a puppet of the French throne, meaning that for the following 100 years, Spain's foreign policy consisted of repeatedly going to war to defend France's strategic interests, at Spain's expense. Until Napoleon put a stop to that by conquering Spain outright (which caused independence rebellions in several of Spain's most important colonies).
Compare THAT mess to the stability that institution-centric constitutional capitalist powers have managed to achieve since the 1600s.
>Myself and many other capitalists would point out that there is no version of capitalism where the economy's corporations take direct orders from the Communist Party, from CCP party commissars...
I said China introduced a healthy dose of capitalism in the 1980s. I didn't say it operates like capitalism in an affluent liberal democracy. You are being disingenuous, and I am not going to waste my time debating the definition of capitalism with you. You know what I meant by my remark.
And I don't understand what's the relevance of your "history lesson" about Spain to this debate. Feudalist Spain was nowhere as wealthy as an modern liberal democracy under capitalism, and they fell behind countries which more aggressively adopted capitalism principles. Crazy kings had little to do with it.
> I said China introduced a healthy dose of capitalism in the 1980s. I didn't say it operates like capitalism in an affluent liberal democracy. You are being disingenuous, and I am not going to waste my time debating the definition of capitalism with you. You know what I meant by my remark.
>
>
Still going to disagree here. A command economy deciding to make some moves in the direction of trade-orientation isn't "a dose of capitalism". It isn't private-sector ownership of the MoP.
All of it means that the original point still stands. We might have the presently dominant economic system on the planet ***for now***, but both today and in the past that dominance has had serious challengers.
The world's No. 2 economy is a totalitarian command-economy. Don't let the t-shirts fool you.
> And I don't understand what's the relevance of your "history lesson" about Spain to this debate.
Huh? You don't understand why you asked me "[**And what happened to Spain?**](https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1cb0bqt/ironically_socialism_proved_that_human_nature_is/l136f7q/)"
I dunno man, it was YOUR question. Not mine.
You tell me.
> Feudalist Spain was nowhere as wealthy as an modern liberal democracy under capitalism,
I repeat... We might have the presently dominant economic system on the planet ***for now***, but both today and in the past that dominance has had serious challengers.
> they fell behind countries which more aggressively adopted capitalism principles.
That took 200 years to happen.
> Crazy kings had little to do with it.
Disagree. Its actually the primary weakness of that kind of system. Just takes a few generations for that weakness to surface.
>Still going to disagree here. A command economy deciding to make some moves in the direction of trade-orientation isn't "a dose of capitalism". It isn't private-sector ownership of the MoP.
And yet, the country has 3 stock markets. What do you think is traded in a stock exchange?
LOL
>That took 200 years to happen.
But it happened.
> > That took 200 years to happen.
> But it happened.
OK, But its still the case that....
* *"The historical record has plenty of moments when major capitalist powers were rivaled in terms of both wealth and power by countries with other economic systems."*
Hell... history might have turned out completely differently, had the Armada not hit a storm while trying to invade England, or had the Spanish quickly won the 80-years war against Holland (which would have put their forces in Flanders in a position to deal with England directly instead of asking Spain to send an Armada in the first place.
Not that I'm that interested in historical what-ifs, but definitely, 200-years is time enough for a military rival to overcome a slightly economically more successful one. Anybody who has read about the Punic Wars, or even the more recent Russo-Japanese war, Imjin war in Korea, or American civil war, can corroborate.
> And yet, the country has 3 stock markets. What do you think is traded in a stock exchange?
A small subset of China's companies, whom an outsider to the CCP could never control, nor exercise a decisive vote in, Nor ever buy outright through an M&A or LBO process, all of which **DO** occur under capitalism.
Sure... they are export-oriented now. But it's doesn't make them NOT a command economy.
>A small subset of China's companies, whom an outsider to the CCP could never control, nor exercise a decisive vote in, Nor ever buy outright through an M&A or LBO process, all of which DO occur under capitalism.
You said there is no private-sector ownership of the MOP in China. The existence of 3 stock markets clearly demonstrate how ridiculous this statement is. Now you are shifting the goalposts and arguing that you need M&A and LBO and whatever to have capitalism. You are arguing in bad faith.
Nah, those don’t describe any of my views.
I actually do believe people tend to be inherently self-interested, and responsive to incentives.
However in many cases, it’s in our best interests to be cooperative and get along with each other.
Levelling out power structures and creating a horizontal society of equals will likely bring out the best side of humanity, as the incentives to be on friendly terms with one’s peers are much stronger when everyone has the same power over each other.
You are aware that you are neglecting to account for all socialist theories that aren't marxist leninist?
Like wtf is an anarchists supposed to say to this? Or a market socialist? Or even ortodox marxists?
Hell this is even a bad faith interpretation of marxist leninism, you are acting as if lenin or stalin did not think about "human nature". They did, alike literally all theorists of that time, including capitalists, they were wrong about it. Modern marxists have modern theories about human nature and its consequences on socioeconomic development, such as Harvey.
If you accidentally put poison into your mother's cup of tea, are you evil or just uninformed ?
If you want to put poison in it and accidentally put sugar, are you less evil ?
So no matter what pol pot did, as long as he genuinely believed he did the right thing he is not evil.
I am telling you that i don't know how evil or good pol pot was. Concerning what he did, that has to be judged on a case by case basis because the guy surely did a lot.
If Hitler did everything he did thinking it was to bring good, then indeed Hitler was not evil, only ignorant. But there are reasons to suspect he lied many times, so he did not genuinely think he was bringing good.
Again, if you accidentally put poison into your mother's cup of tea, are you evil or just uninformed ?
Not really, no. What it proved is that politics, especially in authoritarian countries, incentivize a ruthless, selfish approach, and that the guy willing to help others is always gonna be screwed over by the guy willing to fuck everyone over to get power, something that can be extended to politics as a whole.
That's not "human nature". We as a species are far too complicated and diverse to sum it up with such broad statements. We didn't need capitalism or socialism to understand that the guy playing by the rules is always gonna be fucked over by the guy who doesn't and gets away with it, or worse, uses the rules to their advantage.
capitalism isn't any better? With friends like you capitalism does not need any enemies. If you wonder why capitalism is losing the debate when it is so obviously superior just take a look in the mirror.
It sounds like you're trying to use behavioral biology and apply it to socioeconomics. Unfortunately socioeconomics is a range of social sciences which fall broadly under psychology rather than biology, so you'll get a lot of erroneous answers when trying to "convert" it.
If you'd like to explore this topic further, I could recommend philosophy, sociology, psychoneuroendocrinology, or primatology, rather than economics?
>No they were exactly the same.
It seems thermodynamically improbable for any two groups to ever be exactly the same. Just to check, but are you sure this isn't correlation bias?
>It seems thermodynamically improbable for any two groups to ever be exactly the same. Just to check, but are you sure this isn't correlation bias?
complete nonsense.
Ah, I suppose I may have phrased that confusingly. Basically it means that when you have a large number of things nudging each other, every time they nudge something that thing nudges other things, including the initial thing. We call this chaotic interaction and it makes it hard to determine who initially did the nudging, or if there was even an initial nudge in the first place. This is a problem in macroeconomics, and microeconomics mostly just avoids the topic.
[Correlation bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation) is very common in social sciences like history and economics, so I was just asking if you had thought about it.
Socialism sounds good on paper but it scales very poorly. Every family is socialist. But it gets harder when you try to run socialism with even extended family. Trying to run socialism with your street and you'll smash your head against the wall. Trying to run socialism with your city and you'll discover that it's impossible.
Capitalism is successful because it can scale infinitely. It's the only economic system that could extend to the entire human species and still deliver good outcomes. When socialism was tried at a larger scale millions of people died.
Human empathy has limited reach. It's why socialism fails. If one day you feel the same toward a random African child smeared with mud as you do with your own children, capitalism will naturally cease to exist.
Capitalism exists BECAUSE of human nature, not inspite of it. Capitalism respects human nature and uses it to the advantage of others whenever possible. Whereas socialists deny human nature and get disastrous outcomes. Which is what OP's post is about.
all wrong !!!!capitalism is about caring for everybody. Try opening a business and advertising that you don't care about your workers and customers all over the world and you are merely using everybody for your own benefit. Do you have the intelligence to know what happened to your business?
Society is about caring for everybody. Saying you do not care about people violates the social contract.
Capitalism is more or less about getting the most you can with what you have. An effective way to do this is to utilize the social contract to make people more sympathetic with you so that they will feel psychologically comfortable providing you a larger amount of resources for what you are offering them.
is that what your mother taught you. That you'll have a happy life as an adult if you go out and deceive people??? why not just try to do the most Christian thing you can and the most maternal thing you can so you can feel good about yourself. Try to offer them the best jobs and the best products you can. 1+1 = 2
I think that Christianity was basically vedic philosophy passed through a lens of monotheistic authoritarianism, and I dislike that when people are expected to "earn" their keep by being subservient to a specific individual.
I think the act of gaining capital requires extracting it from the market, and utilizing that capital to purchase someone's labor in order to justify their right to extract capital from the market is basically a pyramid scheme, or perhaps like having kids exclusively so they can perform labor on the family farm.
Besides why should someone have to labor for you just because you labored for someone else? That sounds kinda cucked. I broadly think we should get our societies to come together and talk and find ways to help people do the work they want to do while encouraging/rewarding people for contributing towards work that we all require.
This doesn't work on people with antisocial traumas or behavior traits, but that's what universal mental healthcare and benefits are for. If someone doesn't want to help society that usually means that society harmed them and they're distrustful, so if society is nice to them they tend to feel nice towards society and want to help.
>Try to offer them the best jobs and the best products you can.
That leads to millions slipping through the cracks which leads to tens of millions of starving children while you're running around with your pants on fire trying to hire and fire people to match your economic demands.
don't be totally stupid. The instant mao died china switched from subsistence socialism and cannibalism to capitalism and everybody got rich. if you don't like tens of millions slipping through the cracks starving to death and deciding which of their children to eat then you have to love capitalism unless you are a complete moron and idiot.
And AFAIK that capitalist system lead to concentrations of wealth that lead to the rise of a class of state bourgeoisie that seized control from the earlier military intelligence apparatus and that's how we got Xi.
It's the same thing with Putin.
It's almost like unregulated capitalism leads to capital accumulation and authoritarianism.
It's almost like capitalism is monopolizing.
It's almost like people who say capitalism is the only way forward are the same as people saying dictatorship is the only way forward, or subservience to a higher power is the only way forward. The kind of people who are so weak they insist that they need some strong daddy figure to save them.
It's a complete guess. You're operating off vibes and fear. It's silly.
yes we are so why are you so afraid to try to make one good point on behalf of Socialism. You could start with yes it killed 120 million people but ......
If there is a sweeping generalization with which you disagree tell us what it is and the reason you disagree. Do you understand that a reason is necessary?
don't be stupid we got xi because human beings for 1 million years have been like sheep and looked to a leader to relieve them of their responsibility.
That is the criticism socialism has with capitalism. Capitalism puts leaders in charge of the economy based off their perceived merit instead of having society dictate the economy.
America has 30 million corporate leaders in charge of the economy based on the perceived merit they have in the eyes of 330 million people who prefer their jobs and products. further we have 10,000 business bankruptcies a month as workers and customers decide certain businesses no longer offer them the best jobs&products in the world. Instead he wants a few Nazi fascist bureaucrats controlling the economy. Do you see why we say the left is totally stupid and deadly.
Milton Friedman used Pinochet's economic platforms in Chile to advocate for strict deregulation of post-soviet Russia under the Shock Doctrine which lead to economic instability which was exploited by existing criminal gangs to establish economic hegemony which Putin leveraged into an oligarchic structure which support democratic power from the state.
don't be totally stupid. Milton Friedman advocated freedom and capitalism all over the world, nothing more and nothing less. If you have evidence to the contrary I will pay you $10,000.
Capitalism is monopolizing? America has 30 million businesses. Is that a monopoly? The only monopoly comes from Democrats concentrating power in a government monopoly.
That's an argument rooted in the capitalism vs monarchism debate. You can also have monopolies arise from economic factors such as an agent able to utilize economy of scale against emerging competitors.
Also I would say that Amazon and Apple are relatively monopolizing in their respective fields. Without government intervention it would likely get worse.
we want to economies of scale so that things can produced cheaply and we can have a higher and higher standard of living. do you see why we say the left is based in pure stupidity?
how could Amazon get worse? It is a total revolution in our lives providing great prices, incredible selection , amazing information . we are all far richer because of Amazon which is why we all buy from Amazon.
imagine getting into your car to go buy a specialty lightbulb for under your microwave like in the old days. Amazon is a miracle that intelligent people love.
capitalism is not about a strong daddy you idiot. Capitalism is extremely decentralized. Socialism fascism crony capitalism state Capitalism corporatism feudalism they are about strong central government. Capitalism is the exact opposite.
The boss is the daddy. Are you new to the whole socialism vs capitalism debate?
Also Milton Friedman endorsed a strong state to protect capitalism, so I don't think your argument is as universal as you think.
don't be stupid. There are 30 million businesses so 30 million bosses and maybe 100 million bosses under them so if you don't like your boss you have a maximum freedom to change jobs and even to start your own business and be your own boss. No other system offers so much freedom.
Right so Socialism failed everywhere but that doesn't matter you want to keep trying and you imagine that if it is democratic that will somehow make it better. Notice how you get everything backwards. Socialism is about concentrated power. When power is concentrated you don't have democracy. They are opposites.
I believe socialism has mainly failed everywhere so far because their material conditions were [stacked against them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor).
so maybe we should keep trying until it kills 200 million turning many into cannibals who have to decide which of their own children to eat? Did you ever wonder why you hooked your wagon to the deadliest and dumbest idea by far in all of human history?
Thomas Jefferson was not operating off of fear and vibes you idiot. He simply valued freedom and liberty based on his study of human history. America became the greatest country in human history because it had the most freedom and liberty from government in human history. Welcome to your first lesson in American history.
I'm pretty sure we became the most economically powerful country by having a low population to land and capital ratio, along with systematically subjugating all of our regional competitors until we just had Mexico and Canada as subordinate trade partners. We also started off with massive socialist infrastructure projects in the forms of dykes and levees to facilitate inland trade, and then we spent the next hundred odd years of relative peace with capitalists doing their whole robber baron and sweatshops schtick.
Edit: Also we banned Chinese folks from entering for some reason? Honestly if we were humanist instead of racist back then the US population would likely be way larger and way more educated. It's kinda sad when I think about it.
don't be stupid. It has nothing to do with population to land capital ratio. The Chinese people had the same land and capital in 1976 as in 2020 . under Socialism they lived at subsistence cannibalism often having to decide which of their own children to eat. As soon as they switched to capitalism everybody got rich. Indeed all the remaining misery in the world can be laid on the lefts doorstep for talking down Capitalism. Good luck in your afterlife you deadly idiot.
Also:
>Jefferson described himself as an Epicurean and, although he adopted the Stoic belief in intuition and found comfort in the Stoic emphasis on the patient endurance of misfortune, he rejected most aspects of Stoicism with the notable exception of Epictetus' works.
>Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BCE based upon the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus was an atomist and materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to religious skepticism and a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, and its main opponent later became Stoicism. It is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal.
>To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.
This does well to sum up why America wanted to get rid of hereditary political authoritarianism but didn't think about meritocratic social authoritarianism. "Just suck it up, bro." is not what I would call the most enlightened of philosophies. It's basically a way to cope with not knowing about science that won't be invented until the 1980s, and the resulting gap in knowledge being existentially terrifying.
Edit: And I want to emphasize this is *literally* vibes and fear.
Don't be totally stupid Jefferson and Madison formed the republican party in 1792 because they believed in freedom and liberty from government. if you have evidence that they were primarily motivated by epicurean or stoic beliefs I will pay you $10,000.
Capitalism and communism can lead to anything depending on what the majority of people believe. 1+1 = 2 America switched to freedom and capitalism because enough people believed in it rather than in monarchy. Do you understand now?
Yeah that's called class consciousness. Americans became aware that they were subjugated under monarchs. Socialists are arguing that they are subjugated under billionaires.
That's why many socialists call capitalism economic feudalism. You need to find a way to protect yourself from starvation and the way you do that is by seeking out a patron to employ you.
don't be totally stupid. How can you be subjugated under capitalist billionaires when you freely make them billionaires by working for them and buying their products because they are better than any others in the world. Under capitalism billionaires serve us at our pleasure. As soon as we are not satisfied with the level of service we stop buying from them and working for them and they go bankrupt.
capitalism is all about altruism. It is infinitely better. Try opening a business and advertising that you are not altruistic and you don't care about your workers and customers. Do you have the intelligence to know what would happen to your business?
leveling out power structures is totally stupid of course. In a free society you have power to the extent that people give it to you because of what you give back to them. Elon Musk has power because he provides millions of jobs and millions of products that people want to buy more than any others in the world in order to improve their standard of living. We don't want to level him or level his contribution out if anything we want to subsidize him so he can help us even more.
Capitalism is the best system because if you remove offshoring and economic globalism, it forces business to flourish. Even under an autarky policy, the state flourishes when there isn't welfare, social programs, or other forms of "I don't want to work."
off shoring and globalism are wonderful things. The golden rule in economics 101 is the more people with whom you trade the richer you get. It doesn't matter whether you are trading with people across the street or across the world. Imagine you were limited to trading with 1 million people and then imagine you were limited to trading with 8 billion people. Can you tell us which one would make you far far better off????
Internationally, trade is good. The offshoring is horrific because it is going to steal from the domestic workers and give the citizens less chances for a job
By globalism, it's mostly the idea of trying to make everything centralized. Centralization is fine, but it isn't going to work. Trade is fine, it's the offshoring of jobs, because it's sending industrial output elsewhere. Higher wages aren't good either, because you can just raise the prices of your foods and services to get back at the higher wage differences.
Who knows what on earth you were trying to say. The golden rule is the more with whom you trade the richer you get. Imagine if you had to make everything yourself. Now imagine you can trade with the entire world. There is no downside to trade it only makes you richer
we are raised by our mothers who selflessly love us. They don't send us into the world to be selfish but rather to love others the way they loved us. Capitalism is perfect for this. If you don't love your customers and workers more than the competition you go bankrupt. Our mothers prepared us for capitalism with their love.
Yes, and because of human nature we need morality. Strong, objective, logically impenetrable, rational morality. Christian morality is what got us to the 19th century, but we said fuck that shit and then we got the bloodiest fucking century in human history, with hundreds of millions of people dead.
You don't wanna believe in God? Fine! Then what the fuck are you going to do when faced with simple moral questions such as: is it ok to steal from this person so that I can have healthcare? If it is ok, then how much should I steal? If it's ok to steal, then what else is it ok to do to a person for the GREATER FUCKING GOOD?
Luckily, philosophy and logic do provide an answer to rational morality in the form of Universally Preferable Behaviour, but the dimwit comments that you'll see following this post clearly demonstrate that we're not ready for it.
Human nature needs to be chemically and technologically modified to emphasize cooperation and empathy more than competition and selfishness, which is a vestigial carryover and no longer needed. We need a quasi-Kantian/Spinozan ethic but/and to abandon any illusion of free will from our vocabulary. This change must be voluntary to be ethical, and it will be, via some very fun and effective drugs, great BCI technologies, and clear lucid content and leadership from people like me. The transition with take a century or so and starts now more or less. Failed attempts at forced socialism were indeed stupid and unrealistic as well as unethical since totalitarianism is a non-starter. Nordic model is deeply socialist in many respects and works just fine. Those who cling to extreme capitalism as inevitable are not very smart or emotionally resilient, so if you’re one of them, sorry. Sucks to suck.
Thanks! There is a long history of people voluntarily altering their brain chemistry, dialing in more serotonin or noradrenaline, boosting mental focus and decreasing anxiety, achieving blissful states of connection, all of which are experiences that are sought out and loved by those who do them.
In a modern society where attention is prioritized ADHD meds have become normalized and routine, allowing millions of people to modify the natural default for rejecting indirect or alienating work or learning. Even alcohol and weed has played a major role in societies evolving and bonding over the millennia.
MDMA and psilocybin are prime examples that are rapidly approaching legality. New compounds that people will willingly take because it makes you feel good, empathize more, and hate less, is not some sinister project.
And throw brain computer interfaces into the mix, and genetic engineering, and I find it extremely unlikely we will have anywhere the amount of primitively selfish and competitive assholes that we currently have now, thank God.
The people who ruin society have oversized dominance in areas of the brain and neural activity and chemicals associated with competition and stupid “just world fallacy” beliefs. So really, I don’t need your wishes of good luck. I’m already empathetic and evolved, so I won’t have to change much. I wish YOU luck because you will have to learn to adapt to a world where you no longer feel like a sniveling unloved control-freak child who wants to hoard all the toys.
It is ironic that you're calling me primitive for succeeding in the same meritocracy in which you are failing. It's also kind of insane that you are trying to call a societal reliance on SSRIs and ADHD medication a good thing. I won't have to learn to adapt, I'll just quit being an electrician and go print t shirts instead and you'll see how many will follow and your little dream world will go back to the dark ages. In all reality though, I will have to adapt to nothing and you will continue to fail at life because your ideology is going absolutely nowhere. It is very telling how much stiff opposition your ideas have even on a site like reddit.
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"something socialists believe doesn't exist, human nature. Socialists believe that either human nature is inherently socialist and altruistic or they believe doesn't exist at all" You contradict yourself between those 2 sentences.
read it. i am not contradicting myself. I say that some socialists don't believe in human nature and some believe that human nature is inherently socialist.
Nobody believes human nature is inherently socialist Strawman attacks again
false. many socialists do that's why they promote the myth of primitive communism.
>Capitalism isn't any better, as it doesn't change human nature but at least it gave people the chance to advocate for themselves and their families... Only if they live in the global north and have a lot of money.
Oftentimes not even then.
don't be stupid. China was about as global south as you could be. They switched to capitalism the day mao died and everybody got rich. This is an option open to the entire world but not taken because stupid stupid stupid people on the left talk capitalism down. Indeed all the remaining suffering in the world can't be laid out the door steps and stupid people on the left like you.
>everybody got rich. Where did you get this statistic from?
"My source is that I made it the fuck up"
don't be stupid. Everyone in China was living at socialist subsistence and cannibalism on about two dollars a day. Compare that to today.
lol source?
trust me. If you are too stupid to know that people in China were living at subsistence and today they are getting rich, a source will not mean anything to you.
source = trust me bro. classic
can you tell us exactly what you would like a source for???????
this dude has to be a troll albeit a comical one
Source for any of this?
don't be totally stupid. Don't you know how to look up the income in China in 1970?????? there is this new thing called the Internet
Obviously China is doing better today than in 1970 just like everywhere else in the entire world. But you're claiming everyone in China is rich now, I can't find that information anywhere. Moreover the part I was responding to is the op saying people have the ability to advocate for themselves and their families. But in China they still have very little freedom to do this, unless you are one of the few billionaires.
Don't be stupid. Everyone in China was living on two dollars a day and now everyone in China is living on $41
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don't be stupid. Can you give us the reason it seems racist to you? Do you understand that a reason is necessary?
I'm American and we have a cultural history of using the "savage cannibal" trope as a derogatory way to dehumanize cultures we viewed as less technologically or socially advanced than us. Not a great moment on our end.
Of course it is racist. Anything with which a lefty disagrees is racist. It is amazingly stupid but that is what the left has devolved to. embarrassing and tragic.
>Only if they live in the global north and have a lot of money. Capitalist is a necessary but not sufficient element for a society to become affluent. And even if a society is affluent, capitalism is not about providing to you on a silver platter what you consider to be the standard of living you deserve. Sorry, but you still have to haul your a$$ out of bed in the morning and go work for it.
I'm pretty sure society could have become affluent under mercantile feudalism if Galileo had invented cold fusion.
Not as rich as affluent liberal democracies under Capitalism today.
That's a naive assumption.
Disagree. The historical record does indeed jave times when capitalist and feudalist powers co-existed, competed, fought wars, etc. We can look to those times to get a general idea of how it went.
That's correlation bias. You're assuming pre-industrial capitalism would be able to compete against a fusion powered monarchy because capitalism was able to compete with mercantilism. You need to use methodology to account for correlation, sampling, and survivorship bias when using a historical sample size of one to derive predictive analysis about the socioeconomic ramifications of a hypothetical medieval discovery of cold fusion and the novel unscientific economic systems those material conditions would produce. Seriously, "history says it will be this way" is a non-answer. History is a historical record. Most of the time it just tells you tells you about what natural disasters, wars, inventions, memes, and psychological disorders were afflicting the populace. And a lot of the time it's intentionally destroyed. Seriously we don't even really know what economic model the Cathars tried (or whether they had one) because they were exterminated and all their books burnt. And we had a lot of socialist peasant movements under monarchy that people don't know about because they didn't meaningfully enter the historical record due to being systematically hunted down by knights on horseback or occasionally an inquisition.
So, given all this, how can you make the assertion about a feudal society becoming wealthy if it somehow was able cold fusion?(honestly, a completely silly hypothetical)
It was intended to be silly. By inventing novel situations, the hope is to have people engage in topics from viewpoints that are less likely to elicit correlation bias. I also just like having fun. Instead of using capitalism v socialism I used capitalism v monarchism and gave the monarchy a technological advantage in a cultural framework where they were socially endorsed to systematically kill capitalists. (Peasants often didn't like merchants. They thought haggling and trade margins were "stealing" and that they should just "pay a fair price". It was the 1600s.)
>It was intended to be silly. I enjoy comedy and fiction as much as the next person, but I understand this sub to be about the merits of capitalism v. socialism as it relates to the **real world.** You may want to check out the Alternate History sub in reddit? [https://new.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/](https://new.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/)
> That's correlation bias. You're assuming pre-industrial capitalism would be able to compete against a fusion powered monarchy because capitalism was able to compete with mercantilism. > > Doesn't fit the historical record. Is there any specific reason to assume anything other than approximate technological parity (as was the case in many key moments in history)? > Seriously we don't even really know what economic model the Cathars tried I meant to refer to Habsburg Spain during the height of its international power. During that period, the economy depended on nobility, legal privilege, and vassal relationships. It was a time when other feudalist states, such as Czarist Russia, and the Ottoman Empire were also major powers, and when the English and Dutch, who were early adopters of capitalism didn't specifically have substantial technological advantages. > History is a historical record. Most of the time it just tells you tells you about what natural disasters, wars, inventions, memes, and psychological disorders were afflicting the populace. There is no point in pretending as if [**economic history**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history) were not a thing. Hell, there's even a subreddit for it.
>Doesn't fit the historical record. Is there any specific reason to assume anything other than approximate technological parity (as was the case in many key moments in history)? Eurocentrism hurts my soul. >when the English and Dutch, who were early adopters of capitalism didn't specifically have substantial technological advantages. I can understand that, but I would argue they had a lot of advantages and a lack of disadvantages compared to modern socialist countries. For starters, they could engage in capitalism while leaving the peasantry to subsistence farming. Also IIRC the Dutch industrial base was kind of ridiculous GDP/Capita compared to other nations at the time, and back then the English were basically on Easy Mode Island with [Emperor's First Colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland) like two hogshead to their west. I believe they both had relatively high levels of education at the time. >There is no point in pretending as if economic history were not a thing. Hell, there's even a subreddit for it. Economic history is analysis driven, not predictive. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about, except for clarifying that Galileo did not, in fact, invent cold fusion.
> Eurocentrism hurts my soul. > > OK, sure. But does it hurt your Pyongyang? OK. But seriously, technological parity between rivals is a pretty common detail throughout world history. Not just in the west. > Also IIRC the Dutch industrial base was kind of ridiculous GDP/Capita compared to other nations at the time There are some who would say that this was a RESULT of their economic system moreso than anything else. > English were basically on Easy Mode Island with Emperor's First Colony like two hogshead to their west. "*"The metric system is a tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."*"
Pot calling the kettle black, LOL How on earth could Galileo have invented Cold Fusion?
Iunno. What if the Hussite movement held out and he fled to Czechia to flee the inquisition and helped them invent weaponry that allowed them to conquer Europe under a multicultural military-industrial christian technocratic elective monarchy which gave them access to the resources and incentives to engage in large scale systematic military research to engage in global crusades which eventually results in the discovery of electricity and cold fusion?
Thats a whole lot of "What Ifs"
Yeah! It's pretty fun. They're called [thought experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment). Normally I wouldn't come up with an explanation for *why* the cat was in the box, but you asked.
And you provided a completely cryptic answer.
>Capitalist is a necessary but not sufficient element for a society to become affluent. Disagree. The historical record has plenty of moments when major capitalist powers were rivaled in terms of both wealth and power by countries with other economic systems. It was the case during the Renaissance-era when feudalist spain was among Europe's wealthiest powers, far eclipsing countries like England and Holland, where capitalism first emerged. It was the case during the height of the Cold War, when the Soviets briefly had the 2nd or 3rd pargest econ. And these days, its the case with China, who despite having a trade-oriented command economy, have the 2nd largest GDP on the plantet.
>It was the case during the Renaissance-era when feudalist Spain was among Europe's wealthiest powers, far eclipsing countries like England and Holland, where capitalism first emerged. And what happened to Spain? >It was the case during the height of the Cold War, when the Soviets briefly had the 2nd or 3rd pargest econ. And what happened to the USSR? >And these days, its the case with China, who despite having a trade-oriented command economy, have the 2nd largest GDP on the planet. And what happened to China starting in the 1980s, when they introduced a very healthy dose of capitalism into their command economy?
> China starting in the 1980s, when they introduced a very healthy dose of capitalism into their command economy? Disagree. Myself and many other capitalists would point out that there is no version of capitalism where the economy's corporations take direct orders from the Communist Party, from CCP party commissars who mandatorily are assigned to the supervisory board of Chinese Corporates. And who give orders in accordance with executing the CCP's existing 5-year plans, while ensuring regime loyalty when it comes to issues like espionage (both corporate and strategic), and repression (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong Democracy, Tienamen, Uighurs). And that's just the corporates. 50% of Chinese firms are actually SOEs. It means that the CCP straight OWNS half the economy, and is in a position to give direct orders to most of the other half. Which is why AI gets used against Uighurs, and why Huawei, Alibaba, and Tiktok get accused of doing the regime's dirty work. It may be trade-oriented these days, but its still a command economy. It isn't capitalism. And the only guy I know in this sub who pretends otherwise, is also basically a Xi-worshipping CCP apologist Beijing-Bro. Not a capitalist. > And what happened to Spain? They had about 210-ish years where they were the most important power in Europe, while the then-capitalist nations such as Britain, Holland, and some of the Italian states were small in comparison. Considering that the British, the major capitalist power that emerged later became a major world power in the 1760s after the 7-years war, and are still a major power today, 270 years later, that's some pretty stiff competition. Ultimately, feudalism's main weakpoint is that its dependence on feality, specially-defined, hierarchical relationships & obligations, and loyalties is stable in the short-run, but is subject to instability around issues of succession in the long-run. In the case of Spain, an absolute monarchy lead eventually to Charles II, a king who was so inbred that he was cognitively and physically disabled, unable to run his various kingdoms and viceroyalties, and died without any heirs, which kicked-off a 14-year long game of thrones, which both separated Spain from its German, Italian and Benelux territories, where Spain had actually invested its wealth from the Americas (cities like Brussels, Antwerp, Vienna, and Utrecht, in particular were cities where Spanish gold had been invested), and also left the Spanish throne to be a puppet of the French throne, meaning that for the following 100 years, Spain's foreign policy consisted of repeatedly going to war to defend France's strategic interests, at Spain's expense. Until Napoleon put a stop to that by conquering Spain outright (which caused independence rebellions in several of Spain's most important colonies). Compare THAT mess to the stability that institution-centric constitutional capitalist powers have managed to achieve since the 1600s.
>Myself and many other capitalists would point out that there is no version of capitalism where the economy's corporations take direct orders from the Communist Party, from CCP party commissars... I said China introduced a healthy dose of capitalism in the 1980s. I didn't say it operates like capitalism in an affluent liberal democracy. You are being disingenuous, and I am not going to waste my time debating the definition of capitalism with you. You know what I meant by my remark. And I don't understand what's the relevance of your "history lesson" about Spain to this debate. Feudalist Spain was nowhere as wealthy as an modern liberal democracy under capitalism, and they fell behind countries which more aggressively adopted capitalism principles. Crazy kings had little to do with it.
> I said China introduced a healthy dose of capitalism in the 1980s. I didn't say it operates like capitalism in an affluent liberal democracy. You are being disingenuous, and I am not going to waste my time debating the definition of capitalism with you. You know what I meant by my remark. > > Still going to disagree here. A command economy deciding to make some moves in the direction of trade-orientation isn't "a dose of capitalism". It isn't private-sector ownership of the MoP. All of it means that the original point still stands. We might have the presently dominant economic system on the planet ***for now***, but both today and in the past that dominance has had serious challengers. The world's No. 2 economy is a totalitarian command-economy. Don't let the t-shirts fool you. > And I don't understand what's the relevance of your "history lesson" about Spain to this debate. Huh? You don't understand why you asked me "[**And what happened to Spain?**](https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1cb0bqt/ironically_socialism_proved_that_human_nature_is/l136f7q/)" I dunno man, it was YOUR question. Not mine. You tell me. > Feudalist Spain was nowhere as wealthy as an modern liberal democracy under capitalism, I repeat... We might have the presently dominant economic system on the planet ***for now***, but both today and in the past that dominance has had serious challengers. > they fell behind countries which more aggressively adopted capitalism principles. That took 200 years to happen. > Crazy kings had little to do with it. Disagree. Its actually the primary weakness of that kind of system. Just takes a few generations for that weakness to surface.
>Still going to disagree here. A command economy deciding to make some moves in the direction of trade-orientation isn't "a dose of capitalism". It isn't private-sector ownership of the MoP. And yet, the country has 3 stock markets. What do you think is traded in a stock exchange? LOL >That took 200 years to happen. But it happened.
> > That took 200 years to happen. > But it happened. OK, But its still the case that.... * *"The historical record has plenty of moments when major capitalist powers were rivaled in terms of both wealth and power by countries with other economic systems."* Hell... history might have turned out completely differently, had the Armada not hit a storm while trying to invade England, or had the Spanish quickly won the 80-years war against Holland (which would have put their forces in Flanders in a position to deal with England directly instead of asking Spain to send an Armada in the first place. Not that I'm that interested in historical what-ifs, but definitely, 200-years is time enough for a military rival to overcome a slightly economically more successful one. Anybody who has read about the Punic Wars, or even the more recent Russo-Japanese war, Imjin war in Korea, or American civil war, can corroborate. > And yet, the country has 3 stock markets. What do you think is traded in a stock exchange? A small subset of China's companies, whom an outsider to the CCP could never control, nor exercise a decisive vote in, Nor ever buy outright through an M&A or LBO process, all of which **DO** occur under capitalism. Sure... they are export-oriented now. But it's doesn't make them NOT a command economy.
>A small subset of China's companies, whom an outsider to the CCP could never control, nor exercise a decisive vote in, Nor ever buy outright through an M&A or LBO process, all of which DO occur under capitalism. You said there is no private-sector ownership of the MOP in China. The existence of 3 stock markets clearly demonstrate how ridiculous this statement is. Now you are shifting the goalposts and arguing that you need M&A and LBO and whatever to have capitalism. You are arguing in bad faith.
Nah, those don’t describe any of my views. I actually do believe people tend to be inherently self-interested, and responsive to incentives. However in many cases, it’s in our best interests to be cooperative and get along with each other. Levelling out power structures and creating a horizontal society of equals will likely bring out the best side of humanity, as the incentives to be on friendly terms with one’s peers are much stronger when everyone has the same power over each other.
Ironically agile-caterpillar proved that stawmanning is some people's entire personality and it is what gets us in trouble not socialism.
You are aware that you are neglecting to account for all socialist theories that aren't marxist leninist? Like wtf is an anarchists supposed to say to this? Or a market socialist? Or even ortodox marxists? Hell this is even a bad faith interpretation of marxist leninism, you are acting as if lenin or stalin did not think about "human nature". They did, alike literally all theorists of that time, including capitalists, they were wrong about it. Modern marxists have modern theories about human nature and its consequences on socioeconomic development, such as Harvey.
So tell us a modern Marxist theory that isn't totally stupid.
There is no universal human nature. People are spread on a good-evil spectrum, with some of the evilest people to ever live being the top capitalists.
pol pot: hold my beer
If you accidentally put poison into your mother's cup of tea, are you evil or just uninformed ? If you want to put poison in it and accidentally put sugar, are you less evil ? So no matter what pol pot did, as long as he genuinely believed he did the right thing he is not evil.
are you defending pol pot rn? Yes/No?
I am telling you that i don't know how evil or good pol pot was. Concerning what he did, that has to be judged on a case by case basis because the guy surely did a lot.
lmao according to this Hitler wasn't evil.
If Hitler did everything he did thinking it was to bring good, then indeed Hitler was not evil, only ignorant. But there are reasons to suspect he lied many times, so he did not genuinely think he was bringing good. Again, if you accidentally put poison into your mother's cup of tea, are you evil or just uninformed ?
Not really, no. What it proved is that politics, especially in authoritarian countries, incentivize a ruthless, selfish approach, and that the guy willing to help others is always gonna be screwed over by the guy willing to fuck everyone over to get power, something that can be extended to politics as a whole. That's not "human nature". We as a species are far too complicated and diverse to sum it up with such broad statements. We didn't need capitalism or socialism to understand that the guy playing by the rules is always gonna be fucked over by the guy who doesn't and gets away with it, or worse, uses the rules to their advantage.
capitalism isn't any better? With friends like you capitalism does not need any enemies. If you wonder why capitalism is losing the debate when it is so obviously superior just take a look in the mirror.
It sounds like you're trying to use behavioral biology and apply it to socioeconomics. Unfortunately socioeconomics is a range of social sciences which fall broadly under psychology rather than biology, so you'll get a lot of erroneous answers when trying to "convert" it. If you'd like to explore this topic further, I could recommend philosophy, sociology, psychoneuroendocrinology, or primatology, rather than economics? >No they were exactly the same. It seems thermodynamically improbable for any two groups to ever be exactly the same. Just to check, but are you sure this isn't correlation bias?
>It seems thermodynamically improbable for any two groups to ever be exactly the same. Just to check, but are you sure this isn't correlation bias? complete nonsense.
Ah, I suppose I may have phrased that confusingly. Basically it means that when you have a large number of things nudging each other, every time they nudge something that thing nudges other things, including the initial thing. We call this chaotic interaction and it makes it hard to determine who initially did the nudging, or if there was even an initial nudge in the first place. This is a problem in macroeconomics, and microeconomics mostly just avoids the topic. [Correlation bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation) is very common in social sciences like history and economics, so I was just asking if you had thought about it.
Ban this idiot
Socialism sounds good on paper but it scales very poorly. Every family is socialist. But it gets harder when you try to run socialism with even extended family. Trying to run socialism with your street and you'll smash your head against the wall. Trying to run socialism with your city and you'll discover that it's impossible. Capitalism is successful because it can scale infinitely. It's the only economic system that could extend to the entire human species and still deliver good outcomes. When socialism was tried at a larger scale millions of people died. Human empathy has limited reach. It's why socialism fails. If one day you feel the same toward a random African child smeared with mud as you do with your own children, capitalism will naturally cease to exist. Capitalism exists BECAUSE of human nature, not inspite of it. Capitalism respects human nature and uses it to the advantage of others whenever possible. Whereas socialists deny human nature and get disastrous outcomes. Which is what OP's post is about.
all wrong !!!!capitalism is about caring for everybody. Try opening a business and advertising that you don't care about your workers and customers all over the world and you are merely using everybody for your own benefit. Do you have the intelligence to know what happened to your business?
Society is about caring for everybody. Saying you do not care about people violates the social contract. Capitalism is more or less about getting the most you can with what you have. An effective way to do this is to utilize the social contract to make people more sympathetic with you so that they will feel psychologically comfortable providing you a larger amount of resources for what you are offering them.
is that what your mother taught you. That you'll have a happy life as an adult if you go out and deceive people??? why not just try to do the most Christian thing you can and the most maternal thing you can so you can feel good about yourself. Try to offer them the best jobs and the best products you can. 1+1 = 2
I think that Christianity was basically vedic philosophy passed through a lens of monotheistic authoritarianism, and I dislike that when people are expected to "earn" their keep by being subservient to a specific individual. I think the act of gaining capital requires extracting it from the market, and utilizing that capital to purchase someone's labor in order to justify their right to extract capital from the market is basically a pyramid scheme, or perhaps like having kids exclusively so they can perform labor on the family farm. Besides why should someone have to labor for you just because you labored for someone else? That sounds kinda cucked. I broadly think we should get our societies to come together and talk and find ways to help people do the work they want to do while encouraging/rewarding people for contributing towards work that we all require. This doesn't work on people with antisocial traumas or behavior traits, but that's what universal mental healthcare and benefits are for. If someone doesn't want to help society that usually means that society harmed them and they're distrustful, so if society is nice to them they tend to feel nice towards society and want to help. >Try to offer them the best jobs and the best products you can. That leads to millions slipping through the cracks which leads to tens of millions of starving children while you're running around with your pants on fire trying to hire and fire people to match your economic demands.
don't be totally stupid. The instant mao died china switched from subsistence socialism and cannibalism to capitalism and everybody got rich. if you don't like tens of millions slipping through the cracks starving to death and deciding which of their children to eat then you have to love capitalism unless you are a complete moron and idiot.
And AFAIK that capitalist system lead to concentrations of wealth that lead to the rise of a class of state bourgeoisie that seized control from the earlier military intelligence apparatus and that's how we got Xi. It's the same thing with Putin. It's almost like unregulated capitalism leads to capital accumulation and authoritarianism. It's almost like capitalism is monopolizing. It's almost like people who say capitalism is the only way forward are the same as people saying dictatorship is the only way forward, or subservience to a higher power is the only way forward. The kind of people who are so weak they insist that they need some strong daddy figure to save them. It's a complete guess. You're operating off vibes and fear. It's silly.
oh good another long rant to cover up your ignorance !!
We're on a capitalism vs socialism debate subreddit.
yes we are so why are you so afraid to try to make one good point on behalf of Socialism. You could start with yes it killed 120 million people but ......
Did you ever notice that the people who say the most know the least?
Do you ever notice how people who are incapable of articulating their opinions tend to fall back on sweeping generalizations and personal attack?
If there is a sweeping generalization with which you disagree tell us what it is and the reason you disagree. Do you understand that a reason is necessary?
don't be stupid we got xi because human beings for 1 million years have been like sheep and looked to a leader to relieve them of their responsibility.
That is the criticism socialism has with capitalism. Capitalism puts leaders in charge of the economy based off their perceived merit instead of having society dictate the economy.
America has 30 million corporate leaders in charge of the economy based on the perceived merit they have in the eyes of 330 million people who prefer their jobs and products. further we have 10,000 business bankruptcies a month as workers and customers decide certain businesses no longer offer them the best jobs&products in the world. Instead he wants a few Nazi fascist bureaucrats controlling the economy. Do you see why we say the left is totally stupid and deadly.
don't be stupid. What does Putin have to do with capitalism ????????
Milton Friedman used Pinochet's economic platforms in Chile to advocate for strict deregulation of post-soviet Russia under the Shock Doctrine which lead to economic instability which was exploited by existing criminal gangs to establish economic hegemony which Putin leveraged into an oligarchic structure which support democratic power from the state.
don't be totally stupid. Milton Friedman advocated freedom and capitalism all over the world, nothing more and nothing less. If you have evidence to the contrary I will pay you $10,000.
Capitalism is monopolizing? America has 30 million businesses. Is that a monopoly? The only monopoly comes from Democrats concentrating power in a government monopoly.
That's an argument rooted in the capitalism vs monarchism debate. You can also have monopolies arise from economic factors such as an agent able to utilize economy of scale against emerging competitors. Also I would say that Amazon and Apple are relatively monopolizing in their respective fields. Without government intervention it would likely get worse.
we want to economies of scale so that things can produced cheaply and we can have a higher and higher standard of living. do you see why we say the left is based in pure stupidity?
how could Amazon get worse? It is a total revolution in our lives providing great prices, incredible selection , amazing information . we are all far richer because of Amazon which is why we all buy from Amazon. imagine getting into your car to go buy a specialty lightbulb for under your microwave like in the old days. Amazon is a miracle that intelligent people love.
capitalism is not about a strong daddy you idiot. Capitalism is extremely decentralized. Socialism fascism crony capitalism state Capitalism corporatism feudalism they are about strong central government. Capitalism is the exact opposite.
The boss is the daddy. Are you new to the whole socialism vs capitalism debate? Also Milton Friedman endorsed a strong state to protect capitalism, so I don't think your argument is as universal as you think.
don't be stupid. There are 30 million businesses so 30 million bosses and maybe 100 million bosses under them so if you don't like your boss you have a maximum freedom to change jobs and even to start your own business and be your own boss. No other system offers so much freedom.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison created America to be an empire of liberty. There is nothing wrong with a strong state to protect the individual.
Right so Socialism failed everywhere but that doesn't matter you want to keep trying and you imagine that if it is democratic that will somehow make it better. Notice how you get everything backwards. Socialism is about concentrated power. When power is concentrated you don't have democracy. They are opposites.
I believe socialism has mainly failed everywhere so far because their material conditions were [stacked against them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor).
so maybe we should keep trying until it kills 200 million turning many into cannibals who have to decide which of their own children to eat? Did you ever wonder why you hooked your wagon to the deadliest and dumbest idea by far in all of human history?
Thomas Jefferson was not operating off of fear and vibes you idiot. He simply valued freedom and liberty based on his study of human history. America became the greatest country in human history because it had the most freedom and liberty from government in human history. Welcome to your first lesson in American history.
I'm pretty sure we became the most economically powerful country by having a low population to land and capital ratio, along with systematically subjugating all of our regional competitors until we just had Mexico and Canada as subordinate trade partners. We also started off with massive socialist infrastructure projects in the forms of dykes and levees to facilitate inland trade, and then we spent the next hundred odd years of relative peace with capitalists doing their whole robber baron and sweatshops schtick. Edit: Also we banned Chinese folks from entering for some reason? Honestly if we were humanist instead of racist back then the US population would likely be way larger and way more educated. It's kinda sad when I think about it.
don't be stupid. It has nothing to do with population to land capital ratio. The Chinese people had the same land and capital in 1976 as in 2020 . under Socialism they lived at subsistence cannibalism often having to decide which of their own children to eat. As soon as they switched to capitalism everybody got rich. Indeed all the remaining misery in the world can be laid on the lefts doorstep for talking down Capitalism. Good luck in your afterlife you deadly idiot.
Also: >Jefferson described himself as an Epicurean and, although he adopted the Stoic belief in intuition and found comfort in the Stoic emphasis on the patient endurance of misfortune, he rejected most aspects of Stoicism with the notable exception of Epictetus' works. >Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BCE based upon the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus was an atomist and materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to religious skepticism and a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, and its main opponent later became Stoicism. It is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal. >To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. This does well to sum up why America wanted to get rid of hereditary political authoritarianism but didn't think about meritocratic social authoritarianism. "Just suck it up, bro." is not what I would call the most enlightened of philosophies. It's basically a way to cope with not knowing about science that won't be invented until the 1980s, and the resulting gap in knowledge being existentially terrifying. Edit: And I want to emphasize this is *literally* vibes and fear.
Don't be totally stupid Jefferson and Madison formed the republican party in 1792 because they believed in freedom and liberty from government. if you have evidence that they were primarily motivated by epicurean or stoic beliefs I will pay you $10,000.
Capitalism and communism can lead to anything depending on what the majority of people believe. 1+1 = 2 America switched to freedom and capitalism because enough people believed in it rather than in monarchy. Do you understand now?
Yeah that's called class consciousness. Americans became aware that they were subjugated under monarchs. Socialists are arguing that they are subjugated under billionaires. That's why many socialists call capitalism economic feudalism. You need to find a way to protect yourself from starvation and the way you do that is by seeking out a patron to employ you.
don't be totally stupid. How can you be subjugated under capitalist billionaires when you freely make them billionaires by working for them and buying their products because they are better than any others in the world. Under capitalism billionaires serve us at our pleasure. As soon as we are not satisfied with the level of service we stop buying from them and working for them and they go bankrupt.
capitalism is all about altruism. It is infinitely better. Try opening a business and advertising that you are not altruistic and you don't care about your workers and customers. Do you have the intelligence to know what would happen to your business?
leveling out power structures is totally stupid of course. In a free society you have power to the extent that people give it to you because of what you give back to them. Elon Musk has power because he provides millions of jobs and millions of products that people want to buy more than any others in the world in order to improve their standard of living. We don't want to level him or level his contribution out if anything we want to subsidize him so he can help us even more.
Capitalism is the best system because if you remove offshoring and economic globalism, it forces business to flourish. Even under an autarky policy, the state flourishes when there isn't welfare, social programs, or other forms of "I don't want to work."
off shoring and globalism are wonderful things. The golden rule in economics 101 is the more people with whom you trade the richer you get. It doesn't matter whether you are trading with people across the street or across the world. Imagine you were limited to trading with 1 million people and then imagine you were limited to trading with 8 billion people. Can you tell us which one would make you far far better off????
Internationally, trade is good. The offshoring is horrific because it is going to steal from the domestic workers and give the citizens less chances for a job
So you don't wanna trade between New York and Mississippi because wages are so much lower in Mississippi?
By globalism, it's mostly the idea of trying to make everything centralized. Centralization is fine, but it isn't going to work. Trade is fine, it's the offshoring of jobs, because it's sending industrial output elsewhere. Higher wages aren't good either, because you can just raise the prices of your foods and services to get back at the higher wage differences.
Who knows what on earth you were trying to say. The golden rule is the more with whom you trade the richer you get. Imagine if you had to make everything yourself. Now imagine you can trade with the entire world. There is no downside to trade it only makes you richer
we are raised by our mothers who selflessly love us. They don't send us into the world to be selfish but rather to love others the way they loved us. Capitalism is perfect for this. If you don't love your customers and workers more than the competition you go bankrupt. Our mothers prepared us for capitalism with their love.
Yes, and because of human nature we need morality. Strong, objective, logically impenetrable, rational morality. Christian morality is what got us to the 19th century, but we said fuck that shit and then we got the bloodiest fucking century in human history, with hundreds of millions of people dead. You don't wanna believe in God? Fine! Then what the fuck are you going to do when faced with simple moral questions such as: is it ok to steal from this person so that I can have healthcare? If it is ok, then how much should I steal? If it's ok to steal, then what else is it ok to do to a person for the GREATER FUCKING GOOD? Luckily, philosophy and logic do provide an answer to rational morality in the form of Universally Preferable Behaviour, but the dimwit comments that you'll see following this post clearly demonstrate that we're not ready for it.
Human nature needs to be chemically and technologically modified to emphasize cooperation and empathy more than competition and selfishness, which is a vestigial carryover and no longer needed. We need a quasi-Kantian/Spinozan ethic but/and to abandon any illusion of free will from our vocabulary. This change must be voluntary to be ethical, and it will be, via some very fun and effective drugs, great BCI technologies, and clear lucid content and leadership from people like me. The transition with take a century or so and starts now more or less. Failed attempts at forced socialism were indeed stupid and unrealistic as well as unethical since totalitarianism is a non-starter. Nordic model is deeply socialist in many respects and works just fine. Those who cling to extreme capitalism as inevitable are not very smart or emotionally resilient, so if you’re one of them, sorry. Sucks to suck.
Good luck getting people to voluntarily have their minds melted 👍
Thanks! There is a long history of people voluntarily altering their brain chemistry, dialing in more serotonin or noradrenaline, boosting mental focus and decreasing anxiety, achieving blissful states of connection, all of which are experiences that are sought out and loved by those who do them. In a modern society where attention is prioritized ADHD meds have become normalized and routine, allowing millions of people to modify the natural default for rejecting indirect or alienating work or learning. Even alcohol and weed has played a major role in societies evolving and bonding over the millennia. MDMA and psilocybin are prime examples that are rapidly approaching legality. New compounds that people will willingly take because it makes you feel good, empathize more, and hate less, is not some sinister project. And throw brain computer interfaces into the mix, and genetic engineering, and I find it extremely unlikely we will have anywhere the amount of primitively selfish and competitive assholes that we currently have now, thank God. The people who ruin society have oversized dominance in areas of the brain and neural activity and chemicals associated with competition and stupid “just world fallacy” beliefs. So really, I don’t need your wishes of good luck. I’m already empathetic and evolved, so I won’t have to change much. I wish YOU luck because you will have to learn to adapt to a world where you no longer feel like a sniveling unloved control-freak child who wants to hoard all the toys.
It is ironic that you're calling me primitive for succeeding in the same meritocracy in which you are failing. It's also kind of insane that you are trying to call a societal reliance on SSRIs and ADHD medication a good thing. I won't have to learn to adapt, I'll just quit being an electrician and go print t shirts instead and you'll see how many will follow and your little dream world will go back to the dark ages. In all reality though, I will have to adapt to nothing and you will continue to fail at life because your ideology is going absolutely nowhere. It is very telling how much stiff opposition your ideas have even on a site like reddit.
No
Hey Ill be here if you have anything of actual value to say after you finish up washing those dishes! Good luck Lil bro :)