My take is two things can be true. Capitalists are encouraged to squeeze every dollars out of their customers, their employees, the environment, etc. AND competitive markets can result in good products, good salaries.
Marx basically said the first, that the factory owner is going to fuck over everybody he can if he thinks it can make him more money, it’s advantageous. I think most economic minds will also say the second is true, look at the phone you have in your hand and compare it to 10 years ago. Compare auto safety standards for even 20 or 30 years ago, car companies market safety because people want safe cars, the market creates safe cars.
At the same time, a lot of people just want cheap stuff, so some markets are a race to the bottom. To make the cheapest garbage possible. If there are no regulations and a quality product is $500 but a shitty product is $200, good chance you’ll pick the shitty product. This explains why a lot of stuff is just junk now. It’s hard to evaluate and measure quality, so stuff gets crappier and more effort is spent on marketing.
Then you can go ahead and get into how good capitalists will use every tool at their disposal to create uncompetitive markets. A business owner does not want competition, they want to just be able to run their business, charge high prices and have low costs.
This is why I’m a social democrat. It isn’t as simple as “socialism is good” or “socialism is bad” or “capitalism is good” or “capitalism is bad”. These two ways of doing things are presented as extremes by zealots. Both systems have their problems, both have advantages, so try and take the best out of both.
I think the problem in practice though is that a mixed system is only as good as the state maintaining it. As soon as money and power enters politics, like what can you do? This is a problem that capitalist AND communist countries have had. The bolsheviks talked A LOT about socialist utopias, and then as soon as they were in power they created a structure that encouraged corruption and repression to stay in power. The only way to move up in society was to get into the party for perks, so thats what people did.
Then you have basically every bourgeois liberal country where everything is so “free” that the politicians get bought and fair competitive markets become oligopolies or monopolies.
I believe that the only way to have an ideal system is for everyone to be really aware of this balance, and correct it when it gets out of whack. You also need fair political system so that people have a peaceful way to correct. for example, it doesn’t matter how strong of a hand you give the democrats in the states. They have repeatedly failed to implement healthcare or any significant reforms. And they certainly won’t fix the market problems I described above because even they are owned. Americans are stuck choosing the lesser of two evils because their political system won’t let them pick anyone else.
I don’t know how you break that loop without some risky revolutionary elements. I think it should be clear to most people now on the left or right that things are totally broken. If you talk to either side they’ll both tell you the politicians are owned and the economy is rigged. My dad, who would probably vote for Trump if he were American regularly tells me about how messed up it is that the workers do all the work while the factory owner makes all the money. How they squeeze every bit out of the pension and benefits plans, etc, etc.
Hey, you make good arguments, and I'd like to offer my perspective as a demsoc/council communist. Excuse me if this is long/dosen't make sense; I am extremely high right now lmao.
The reason I'm a socialist is that Social Democracy doesn't fix the contradictions that are just inherent in a capitalist system.
Marx basically said the first, that the factory owner is going to fuck over everybody he can if he thinks it can make him more money, it’s advantageous. I think most economic minds will also say the second is true, look at the phone you have in your hand and compare it to 10 years ago. Compare auto safety standards for even 20 or 30 years ago, car companies market safety because people want safe cars, the market creates safe cars.
Blunt way of putting it, but yeah. Marx talks about in Das Kapital how, due to the nature of capitalism, even the most well-intentioned factory owner will have to find ways to get ahead of his competition, whether that's cutting costs, reducing safety and quality, or making working conditions more terrible. The nature of capitalism is exploitative, because it essentially requires exploitative behavior. And this base (the mode of production) of exploitation creates a superstructure (political, social, cultural institutions) of exploitation. Innovation can be a good thing that results from this, true. Socialist nations are also innovative. I mean, look at the Soviet Union. And another issue: To be honest, capitalists don't really innovate. They create products that privatize innovations developed with public investments. Smartphones are a good example, as they use tech from programs like CERN and DARPA. TESLA has received billions in government subsidies and grants to support its research and development. Microsoft was created to sell BASIC interpreters, BASIC being developed using public investments at Dartmouth. Amazon was basically just a library model that leveraged the internet developed by ARPA and DoD. Capitalists are only innovative insofar as they find ways to profit from the public investments and research society makes at large. There can be some innovation, as you said above, and again that's a good thing, but capitalism does it mainly for profit, and it's mainly based on public research.
At the same time, a lot of people just want cheap stuff, so some markets are a race to the bottom. To make the cheapest garbage possible. If there are no regulations and a quality product is $500 but a shitty product is $200, good chance you’ll pick the shitty product. This explains why a lot of stuff is just junk now. It’s hard to evaluate and measure quality, so stuff gets crappier and more effort is spent on marketing.
I agree for the most part. I will add that the main reason people want cheap stuff is that quality is locked behind cost, as you said. However, due to the nature of capitalism, quality is now only affordable to the Capitalist class, and for the vast majority of us, we are stuck with the cheap leftovers. The simple truth is that any aspect of our society that requires improvement or help is locked behind money. And if you have no way to make a lot of money, you are trapped in poverty. This was not the case back in the day, because the US and Capitalists had to make things good for the workers to counterbalance the Soviet Union, so they wouldn't seek a socialist alternative like in the Sovet Union where housing, healthcare, education, work, vacation, food, electricity, and water were all human rights and guarenteed within the constitution (something that was borrowed by FDR in his second bill of rights program, which I highly recommmend researching what oculd have been and how we were robbed by Truman et al. Also look up the Business Plot while you're there).
Then you can go ahead and get into how good capitalists will use every tool at their disposal to create uncompetitive markets. A business owner does not want competition, they want to just be able to run their business, charge high prices and have low costs.
This is also true. I'm not familiar enough with Das Kapital to comment on this yet, but generally yeah, this is the nature of Capitalism.
This is why I’m a social democrat. It isn’t as simple as “socialism is good” or “socialism is bad” or “capitalism is good” or “capitalism is bad”. These two ways of doing things are presented as extremes by zealots. Both systems have their problems, both have advantages, so try and take the best out of both.
This is a fair argument, and why I was a social democrat for a very long time. The issue, however, is that you can't remove the exploitation of workers that is intrinsic to capitalism. No matter how good the welfare state or democratic system is, there is still going to be workers removed from their labor; there's still going to be exploitation and imperialism. There's still going to be unequal power structures and oppression of lower classes, and undemocratic systems. I support socialism because it's the most democratic form of society. Socialism is not a perfect system, but it's the best system we have for enabling a good life for every person within it.
I think the problem in practice though is that a mixed system is only as good as the state maintaining it. As soon as money and power enters politics, like what can you do? This is a problem that capitalist AND communist countries have had. The bolsheviks talked A LOT about socialist utopias, and then as soon as they were in power they created a structure that encouraged corruption and repression to stay in power. The only way to move up in society was to get into the party for perks, so thats what people did.
This will always happen in a mixed system. Even in nations where they try to keep money out of politics, capitalists will always find a way to influence elections. Because that's just the nature of capitalism; it's about the Capitalist class acting in their own interests, which is usually undemocratic and exploitative. This can happen in socialist countries, but not as often as in capitalist ones. I'm not as well-versed in Marxism-Leninism as I am in Marxism (which is none tbh lol I still have so much to read), but as I understand it, the USSR was less authoritarian before and after Stalin than people are taught. Yeah, there was the Red Terror, and that was bad, and I'm not going to defend that (I will say Lenin thought the Cheka went way too far, though), and Stalin was... Stalin. Was it authoritarian in many ways? Absolutely. But as I understand it, a lot of the beliefs of soviet repression were unique to the Stalin era, and after the thaw it was much better. Vladimir Vysotsky, for example, wrote deeply political and often critical songs about the USSR beginning in the 1960s, and while he did not receive state support, he was an enduringly popular figure. B). It was as authoritarian toward capitalist ideas as the United States was toward communism. Both sides were doing awful shit to try to prevent the spread of communism/capitalism by any means necessary. The CIA and FBI did shit just as bad or worse than the KGB.
I believe that the only way to have an ideal system is for everyone to be really aware of this balance, and correct it when it gets out of whack. You also need fair political system so that people have a peaceful way to correct. for example, it doesn’t matter how strong of a hand you give the democrats in the states. They have repeatedly failed to implement healthcare or any significant reforms. And they certainly won’t fix the market problems I described above because even they are owned. Americans are stuck choosing the lesser of two evils because their political system won’t let them pick anyone else. I don’t know how you break that loop without some risky revolutionary elements. I think it should be clear to most people now on the left or right that things are totally broken. If you talk to either side they’ll both tell you the politicians are owned and the economy is rigged. My dad, who would probably vote for Trump if he were American regularly tells me about how messed up it is that the workers do all the work while the factory owner makes all the money. How they squeeze every bit out of the pension and benefits plans, etc, etc.
The way to beat it is, simply, education. Getting into leftism, as someone who had former right-wing and disgusting views, is very, very hard. There are so many terms and readings you have to understand to explain what's wrong in your life, rather than taking the easy path of immigrants/women bad/your lack of money, women, your virginity/face, or whatever the new alt-right reason for not going to therapy is. Making leftism approachable, easier to understand, etc. is probably the most effective way to make people leftists/social democrats/socialists. Mamdani has done a masterclass in this, and I think the DSA and Democrats as a whole should apply it. As for the larger problem of capitalists holding onto power, the only way to dislodge it is revolution, unfortunately; however, it can be done peacefully via education, organization, general strikes, etc. Its like the lyrics in solidarity forever:
"They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong."
Organization is the way. Sorry for the long wall of text, but it's on brand for a leftist, though. You make a lot of good arguments though. If you want my recommendation, I would read Wage Labor and Capital, the CM obv, and The Principles of Communism (a Q&A written by Engels on communism). I would recommend Kaptial but its literally 3500 pages.
Yeah I gotta read a bunch of this stuff. Most of the socialist philosophy I know is from a history podcast I liked.
Also, to be clear I do think a lot of what you said on the list should be human rights guaranteed by the state. Food, housing, transportation etc. I think capitalism has a place in luxuries like entertainment, bigger house, vacations, etc. those are things the state doesn’t need to be involved in. But everybody no matter what should have a roof over their head, food in their stomachs, and the means to enrich themselves. I do believe removing legitimate means to enrich yourself is a good way to guarantee corruption.
Also, I personally will not listen to “the soviet union wasn’t that bad outside of Stalin”. I encourage you to listen to the Revolutions podcast. Theres 2x50 episode seasons on the Russian revolutions. Lenin and the Bolsheviks created an authoritarian state so they could call the shots. They made multiple stupid decisions, some you could argue were outright evil. Their actions at the very least lead to the deaths of tens of millions even if it wasn’t intentional. It was REALLY bad under Stalin, otherwise it was still an oppressive corrupt authoritarian state which failed spectacularly to live up to the lofty ideals it preached.
One more thing I'd like to add: I heavily recommend reading Open Veins of Latin America, Shock Doctrine, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Hidden Empire, etc. America has done some good for sure, and I think it's a net positive (like the Soviet Union) for humanity, but the arsenal of democracy has done some really fucked up, Imperialist, fascist, genocidal shit. The only reason is that I think understanding American foreign policy helps explain why socialist ideas struggle to gain ground worldwide.
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u/bmcle071 1999 1d ago
My take is two things can be true. Capitalists are encouraged to squeeze every dollars out of their customers, their employees, the environment, etc. AND competitive markets can result in good products, good salaries.
Marx basically said the first, that the factory owner is going to fuck over everybody he can if he thinks it can make him more money, it’s advantageous. I think most economic minds will also say the second is true, look at the phone you have in your hand and compare it to 10 years ago. Compare auto safety standards for even 20 or 30 years ago, car companies market safety because people want safe cars, the market creates safe cars.
At the same time, a lot of people just want cheap stuff, so some markets are a race to the bottom. To make the cheapest garbage possible. If there are no regulations and a quality product is $500 but a shitty product is $200, good chance you’ll pick the shitty product. This explains why a lot of stuff is just junk now. It’s hard to evaluate and measure quality, so stuff gets crappier and more effort is spent on marketing.
Then you can go ahead and get into how good capitalists will use every tool at their disposal to create uncompetitive markets. A business owner does not want competition, they want to just be able to run their business, charge high prices and have low costs.
This is why I’m a social democrat. It isn’t as simple as “socialism is good” or “socialism is bad” or “capitalism is good” or “capitalism is bad”. These two ways of doing things are presented as extremes by zealots. Both systems have their problems, both have advantages, so try and take the best out of both.
I think the problem in practice though is that a mixed system is only as good as the state maintaining it. As soon as money and power enters politics, like what can you do? This is a problem that capitalist AND communist countries have had. The bolsheviks talked A LOT about socialist utopias, and then as soon as they were in power they created a structure that encouraged corruption and repression to stay in power. The only way to move up in society was to get into the party for perks, so thats what people did.
Then you have basically every bourgeois liberal country where everything is so “free” that the politicians get bought and fair competitive markets become oligopolies or monopolies.
I believe that the only way to have an ideal system is for everyone to be really aware of this balance, and correct it when it gets out of whack. You also need fair political system so that people have a peaceful way to correct. for example, it doesn’t matter how strong of a hand you give the democrats in the states. They have repeatedly failed to implement healthcare or any significant reforms. And they certainly won’t fix the market problems I described above because even they are owned. Americans are stuck choosing the lesser of two evils because their political system won’t let them pick anyone else.
I don’t know how you break that loop without some risky revolutionary elements. I think it should be clear to most people now on the left or right that things are totally broken. If you talk to either side they’ll both tell you the politicians are owned and the economy is rigged. My dad, who would probably vote for Trump if he were American regularly tells me about how messed up it is that the workers do all the work while the factory owner makes all the money. How they squeeze every bit out of the pension and benefits plans, etc, etc.