Anti-Capitalism

[elsbet]

There is no such thing and never has been the “true capitalism” you speak of. Systems of exchange have always existed prior to the state. What is called Capitalism is what it’s always been and is just Feudalism under a different name.

Actual “freed markets” are socialist .

Whether it has existed in the past (or not), is irrelevant. And I'm making the point and the distinction for the sake of the discussion. When people are advocates of capitalism, they dont share your opinion of what that *really* means-- you can call it whatever you like, but wasting time on what essentially amounts semantics is counterproductive. Unless you're into that kind of thing, of course. If so, then by all means.. carry on.

 

[mecca]

lol what is this.. ? Are you educating me on the very nature of my own livelihood?

I am just bringing up the other aspects of capitalism that you left out.

The second statement in bold is a direct contradiction of your own, deeply held beliefs. Unfortunately, those beliefs are not based on the truth-- that little quote up there is the truth. The perversion of Capitalism is what the US is currently under... not the ideal. That is my almighty point.

I don't know what you're talking about... his quote didn't contradict anything that I believe. I agree with @Colonel Valerio.

You said the medical industry is not capitalist... but if the medical field is an industry, then it is capitalist because goods (the medications) are being produced for profit. Companies own certain treatments and they profit from them, they even patent them. That's capitalism.

The US is quite obviously capitalist... we have privately owned capitalist businesses that make money from selling goods that are produced using wage labor. The existence of regulations and welfare does not negate our capitalist economy. A "free market" capitalism without regulation would be worse than how capitalism currently is now. It would allow capitalists to exploit people and resources even more than they already do without any accountability. Capitalists place profit above everything else including human welfare and the environment.

Really... when and where?

For the vast majority of human history land was held in common... Only recently did government systems take control over land and resources and enable capitalists to privatize the land for themselves. That's how capitalists got control over the land in the first place, they had to take it by force from the people who were using it. That's the essence of privatization.

 

[free2018]

Capitalism, by its nature, encourages a lack of ethics. At least how it is currently.

Under what systems, have there been no breach of ethics:
Communist systems?
Socialist systems?
I'll wait.

 

[Aero]

This.

It always amazes me how people rail against the “elite” but defend to the death the system that created the elite.

Lol, it doesn't amaze me. But it does leave me scratching my head.

I don't see a good reason to blame the money men though. It sounds like a pretty crappy job, but that's what they do. Do you think the people born into Mafia families had much of a choice? Because I'm saying they didn't.

The average American isn't being smart with their money. They are getting played and saying "Thank you, Sir, May I have another?" So no amount of elite wizardry excuses that. All I'm saying is that at a certain age everyone knows the score. America wants you in debt for your entire life.

 

[Colonel Valerio]

Lol, it doesn't amaze me. But it does leave me scratching my head.

I don't see a good reason to blame the money men though. It sounds like a pretty crappy job, but that's what they do. Do you think the people born into Mafia families had much of a choice? Because I'm saying they didn't.

The average American isn't being smart with their money. They are getting played and saying "Thank you, Sir, May I have another?" So no amount of elite wizardry excuses that. All I'm saying is that at a certain age everyone knows the score. America wants you in debt for your entire life.

We’re all products of our environment, and while like a Mafia family they may not have much of a choice it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be exposed or held accountable.
Still I’m too tired to harbor all that hatred anymore.

 

[free2018]

Everything you see and hear has been manipulated by the Elite for hundreds of years at the very least.
Going off the grind is possible, but sovereignty is also penalized for not playing ball.
Utopia is not something man can achieve by himself.

 

[justjess]

Oh well that’s just bullshit... everyone has a choice. Even those born into “mafia families” - those choices might be more difficult but they exist and they are possible. That’s just an excuse.

 

[justjess]

Under what systems, have there been no breach of ethics:
Communist systems?
Socialist systems?
I'll wait.

Never said other systems don’t have breaches of ethics, but a complete lack of ethics isn’t actually a built in feature. Capitalism is literally “I’ll get mine, you get yours” so a breach of ethics is ingrained. You can only succeed at the expense of others.

 

[free2018]

Never said other systems don’t have breaches of ethics, but a complete lack of ethics isn’t actually a built in feature. Capitalism is literally “I’ll get mine, you get yours” so a breach of ethics is ingrained. You can only succeed at the expense of others.

Being dependent on society for one's ethics is a lose lose proposition.
Capitalism is:
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

As for Communist states, lack of ethics is built into China for example. Speak out and you're lucky if you live.
China? Want to get rid of a business partner? Get him through in jail. Just say he's going against the party.
Thailand? Beautiful place, but you can't say bad things about the king.
Socialist places? As in France for example, wealth built on colonialism and other people's natural resources.

 

[justjess]

you are talking about authoritarian regimes that do things which have nothing to do with the content of their economic systems, (in the case of France you are going to have to explain because I don’t know where you are going and France isn’t even socialist.) Rather then something inherent in those economic systems which is what I am talking about with capitalism... profit being in the definition that you just posted. In order to profit someone has to lose no?

If your trying to argue only god can save us I think your in the wrong thread tbh.

 

[free2018]

Your claiming that capitalism is inherently systematically evil, right?
What else exists in the real world?
Are Americans free in the current system?

In what way is France not socialist?
Which EU countries are not socialist?
Which of the countries that are socialist have not created wealth through other people's suffering?


I don't care if you don't believe in God.
I haven't mentioned my faith and I'll post where I want when I want.

 

[Colonel Valerio]

Your claiming that capitalism is inherently systematically evil, right?
What else exists in the real world?
Are Americans free in the current system?

In what way is France not socialist?
Which EU countries are not socialist?
Which of the countries that are socialist have not created wealth through other people's suffering?


I don't care if you don't believe in God.
I haven't mentioned my faith and I'll post where I want when I want.

You act like the only alternative to kkkaptitalism is state communism.

That’s not true, we have anarchy.

I suggest you read Animal Farm again, this time through the understanding that the humans are Capitalists and Snowball is Trotsky.

And I’m not a Communist or a Trotskyist, but it’s always pretty obvious that Russian Revolution was betrayed, but the great Anarchist Tolstoy was right, violent revolutions don’t work and are immoral.

Stalinism was just state run capitalism tbh

 

[justjess]

Your claiming that capitalism is inherently systematically evil, right?
What else exists in the real world?
Are Americans free in the current system?

In what way is France not socialist?
Which EU countries are not socialist?
Which of the countries that are socialist have not created wealth through other people's suffering?


I don't care if you don't believe in God.
I haven't mentioned my faith and I'll post where I want when I want.

Yes I am.

Just because something doesn’t currently exist doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Or that we shouldn’t strive for something less flawed or more fair even if it isn’t perfect.

No, we are not. And our current system is capitalism so not understanding this point tbh..

France and the eu are not socialist, they are capitalist with more robust safety nets then the us.

We don’t currently have any real socialist countries.

I never said I didn’t believe in god. But gods existence does not negate mans responsibility to act

 

[free2018]

You act like the only alternative to kkkaptitalism is state communism.

That’s not true, we have anarchy.

I suggest you read Animal Farm again, this time through the understanding that the humans are Capitalists and Snowball is Trotsky.

And I’m not a Communist or a Trotskyist, but it’s always pretty obvious that Russian Revolution was betrayed, but the great Anarchist Tolstoy was right, violent revolutions don’t work and are immoral.

Stalinism was just state run capitalism tbh

Fundamentally, genocide and slavery are what modern wealth is built on. Wall street was a place to sell slaves.
No argument there.
The idea that exchanging a good or service for money-- or its' equivalent-- is evil is not rational.
I am not a utopian. Modern man can not even demand their human rights under the faulty systems in place.
Theory is good. I'm all for it, but the reality of the systems in place is what I'm discussing.
Would anarchy be awesome in a populace that has integrity and ethics?
Yes, in theory, it would. Is that populace on this planet? Historically, that populace has never existed on this planet.
Could it? In theory, yes.

 

[Bacsi]

https://c4ss.org/content/3202

There is no such thing as a free market. When people speak of it as something different then the current existing economy, it means the same thing but with out any regulatory functions and without social welfare programs. It’s even worse and it’s what the current regime has been working for while the game show host distracts everybody.

Capitalism is based off illegal grants of property, and usually illegal l capital or means of acquiring it.

Capitalism is why there are no real medical cures, it is why qualified people struggle for an education and why we have wars.

Ultimately capitalists are always authoritarian in nature as demonstrated here

https://c4ss.org/content/41552

Whether they try and pretend to be otherwise, like Lew Rockwell.


It’s also necessary to oppose the state as well as it stands it exists solely to protect capitalism and the wealth of our rulers.

Capitalism is a lower-level system description not relevant today. What we have is global rule of banking elite:

 

[Corvus Metus]

Even if capitalism is a "low-level deception", rejecting capitalism also rejects the power that these global banks have. Banks exist because they reinforce the idea of private property and that the money, rather than labor, is the thing of value. And capitalism, as long as it's tenets are reinforced, serves the banks; the "fuck you, gotta get mine" attitude of capitalism is what forces people to take out these loans on a personal, national, and international level.

 

[Sunshine]

Feudalism has more in common with communism than capitalism.

I think you are mistaking the heirarchical nature of society with our current socio-economic system. As it turns out ALL societies are heirarchies, from ancient Sumer on down. I think it may be ingrained in us humans, as in most other species, to have alphas, betas, omegas, etc. The cool thing about capitalism is it's the easiest system in which to buck the heirarchy! Any one can start out dirt poor, and make themselves successful, and often wealthy. And you don't have to be ruthless to do it. All it takes is one Great Idea, and you can sell it to anyone willing to buy it.

In feudalism, if you are born into a class, you spend your entire life as a member of that level of society, period. No matter how talented, creative, hard-working you are, you are guaranteed no upward mobility. If your a serf, the lord of whatever area you live in owns you. You can't leave, you can't keep your crops to yourself, you can't build yourself a new house without his say-so.

If anything, capitalism, even with all of its problems, is like an Anti-feudalism.

 

[justjess]

It’s a myth that you can start off dirt poor and end up wealthy, they let enough people succeed at it so that the rest of us will believe but on a large scale it’s sinply not true. Economic mobility has been stagnant for decades. The American dream is dead. But our stubborn insistence on believing it fuels our current complacency to our situation. The same way it fuels billions of dollars in lottery sales. Pretty much the same thing.

 

[free2018]

If one wants to survive most places on the planet, one has to sell services in exchange for money.
The American dream was wiped out by greed and subverting workers' rights.
Getting wealthy is a nice fantasy, but if you're of working age you have to create your own retirement yourself.

 

[elsbet]

For the vast majority of human history land was held in common... Only recently did government systems take control over land and resources and enable capitalists to privatize the land for themselves. That's how capitalists got control over the land in the first place, they had to take it by force from the people who were using it. That's the essence of privatization.

?

You said this: "Land used to be seen as something no one could truly own... "

Native Americans, for one, disagree. So...
When and where was this philosophy held? Other than California in the 60s? That is my question. Because land ownership goes way back.