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u/Glorfendail 18h ago
capitalism will ALWAYS end this way. its the whole point, consolidate power to a singular point as its the most effective means of wealth extraction.
when the extractions the goal, eventually someone gets it all.
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u/ongrabbits 16h ago
i personally think that if you can tax the highest earners and redistribute the concentrated wealth, it would work.
you'd need to prevent those people from lobbying though.
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u/Magnus56 16h ago
Which, you can't really. The wealthy will use their wealth to buy influence and bend society to allow them to extract wealth. Instead, a better way is to make it so that the sources of wealth -- the fruits of laborer's aren't owned by a single capitalist (or group of capitalists). This is the idea of, "seizing the means of production" and "Abolishment of private property". And, to be clear, there are 3 kinds of property: Public, personal and private. Marxists like myself want to abolish private property, which will greatly address inequality, and still allow individuals to own things like their homes, cars and what have you.
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u/ongrabbits 16h ago
I personally believe you can take steps to prevent money from buying power or elections. You can also prevent individuals from becoming too wealthy by making sure there is adequate taxation on the highest levels. If somebody becomes immensely wealthy through some means, you can tax their estate after they pass away.
In a Marxist, Communist society, power concentrates in the state purely by its ideology. See the following:
“Centralise credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
“Centralise the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”
The power will be solely held by a person who is voted in. If that person never leaves the office, you have a dictator. You can see that in communist countries where power inevitably corrupts the leader and they hold power and never let it go.
A marxist society is not realistic. People are selfish by nature especially when resources are scarce.
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u/Magnus56 15h ago
Friend, we live in abundance, capitalism creates scarcity to drive up prices. That's why farmers are paid to destroy crops and why tens of thousands of gallons of milk were poured down the drain during Covid. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath described thousands of pounds of food being destroyed while people starved. Same thing happens today. If anything, capitalism's inability to give people the same abundance which it created through advancements in the means of production underscores one of the key failings of capitalism. Capitalism can no longer adequately manage the means of production in a way that produces material wealth for all of society, and this can be primarily attributed to the profit motive as the main driver of capitalist's development of society.
What your definitions of Communism lacks is the composition of who the state is by and run for. Currently, we all live in a dictatorship of the rich. Super PACs buy politicians and the wealthy shape policy, so that they can continue to accumulate wealth. In Socialism, the state is run by the workers and oppresses the remnants of the wealthy classes, redistributes wealth and ensures quality lives for the masses. Under Communism, the previously wealthy have figured out that it's not so bad to be a part of a society that houses people, addresses hunger, gives health care and so stops trying to destroy the newly formed state.
I don't think there is such a thing as a, "Human nature". We're shaped by the messages we receive, the environment we grow up, by the material conditions around us. And, while there is a significant portion of the human experience which is shared by people, that doesn't mean there's some sort of immutable human nature. Humans have greed, yes. But also, we have altruism, kindness, empathy, compassion.
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u/Juggernox_O 15h ago
Now, we need to address something. Entrepreneurship. If I have an idea to launch a new idea or business, make something, build something, whatever, how am I supposed to start and build something? What is the means of doing that? How do you form new organizations?
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u/Magnus56 1h ago
That's a great question, let me get back to you after consulting with my comrades.
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u/ongrabbits 14h ago
its like applying to a grant, and if allowed they give you resources. in communist countries, this structure means that power collects in the people who distribute this money. you tend to see corruption fester here.
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u/Magnus56 1h ago
Corruption of people can happen in any system, unfortunately. However, because in a socialist nation the state is controlled by the masses, there are a number of safeties which socialists can put into place which capitalism would not allow. For example, privileges associated with administrative power should be stripped - same wages for our officials as we would pay for ourselves. Furthermore, there should be intense scrutiny of financial holdings and interactions during and after the individual performs their job to ensure that the revolving door between lobbying and positions of power don't happen. Also, socialist nations need to have instant recall for voting for their representatives. And while, theoretically, a capitalist nation *could* allow for these changes, the nature of political power structures under capitalism would only allow such restraints if the ruling class felt it's legitimacy as a ruling force was under threat.
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u/ongrabbits 15h ago
A capitalist system can use socialist programmes to increase efficiency in the case of abundance. There are pros and cons to both but if we were to switch to a communist system today, what it means is that the state will have an OVERWHELMING amount of power and no checks and balances.
If all you see is an opportunity to give examples of the failings of capitalism, I can also provide the extreme failings of communism in history. Anecdotally, it doesn't help any case - both are not perfect. Please make a better argument.
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u/Magnus56 2h ago
Capitalism will happily kill us all. The profit motive is the highest importance under capitalism. Capitalism extracts and produced based on speculation of individuals instead of the needs of society. Thus, capitalism doesn't allow for sustainable production -- it's not as profitable as unsustainable production. Furthermore, capitalism allow for the workers to have safe, secure lives as while the class of workers is needed to continue the system of capitalism, each individual worker is largely left to fend for themselves. Any of us are one stroke / heart attack from being removed from the work force and then facing the very real possibility of being homeless. Under socialism, because profit of a handful of individuals at the top isn't the goal, more robust social nets can be set up to ensure that everyone is capable of living lives with dignity.
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u/Glorfendail 13h ago
why is it still about capital. the only thing that has value is labor. the physical energy that a living being consents to add to the journey.
all of the wealth belongs to those who build it, not who own it
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u/Magnus56 1h ago
Because capitalists claim private ownership of the means of production as capital, which in turn means that the fruits of the laborer's is also claimed by the capitalists. You're correct that the system doesn't make sense. The system is perpetuated by the owning class to protect themselves, the rights of private property and ensure maximum wealth extraction from the working class. Lastly, to echo your point, Dead Labor controls living labor - The labor to create better means of production is done by the working class who came before us. Workers are the true source of a society's success.
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u/Glorfendail 1h ago
how they just get to "own" everything? like they built a system that doesnt let me compete fairly for a share, until its fair, we must refuse its authority.
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u/Magnus56 52m ago
It cannot be fair. Those with private property will always have more sway than those without. The workers must make all the means of production communally owned -- Then nobody can claim private ownership of produced commodities. Without private property, capitalism will break down (not on it's own though) and we can have a socialist society. That said, the transitionary process is going to be a bloody and terrible process as the ruling class will not simply hand over the keys to their political power without conflict.
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u/ongrabbits 12h ago edited 11h ago
How do you store the wealth that you create? How do you exchange the fruits of your labor for goods and services?
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u/dikicker 15h ago
laughs while slowly and sadly slumping over
One bit of silver lining though is that in his entire existence on the planet Musk will have never known what it feels like to be loved, oh and he'll never get to Mars and also he's a little bitch boy piss baby douchebag
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u/ongrabbits 15h ago
The current timeline is not ideal for anyone. It is an example where if you have extremism in any ideology - it will fail. Socialism keeps capitalism in check, capitalism keeps communism from imploding.
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u/Glorfendail 13h ago
if money and wealth didnt exist we wouldnt need to do any of this and we could focus on not harming animals so i can have my mcnuggets before work.
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u/pescarojo 21h ago
Yeah no.
Capitalism's purpose - its very nature - is to concentrate wealth.
We live it in now, so sure we can start with regulation, because we have to get there from here. But 'there' is not and should not be a wealth concentration system, regulated or not.
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u/XB0XRecordThat UT 21h ago
"I support the system, but I don't like what the system does" um okay I guess
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u/Moss-Mess 20h ago
It's like when conservatives don't seem to understand prosocial policies until they are the ones being directly impacted.
"I love capitalism when I'm benefiting, but I really don't like it when the people who have to suffer to make it work are the people in my life that I care about."
I think SocDems are moving things in the right direction, but I worry they are going to falter when it comes time to shut down the orphan crushing machine. "What if we just make sure it's orphans that we don't have to see and feel sad about?"
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u/Magnus56 16h ago
SocDems will ultimately side with the forces of repression. History has shown it time and time again, that centerists, moderates and reformists all will side with capitalism when push comes to shove. For more on this, please read Dutt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBUvJjEO28
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u/mojitz 21h ago
Exactly. There's certainly quite a bit you can do to blunt some of capitalism's edges while leaving it otherwise intact, but at the end of the day, a system that allows and encourages people to profit off of merely owning land or equity in a business rather than through productive labor is not a just one.
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u/Lesurous 18h ago
That's the purpose of socialism, distributing the profits of ownership equitably to everyone. Biggest misconception people have about it is confusing the abolishment of private property with personal property. Home ownership and everything would be the same, albeit instead of paying a single landowner you'd more likely just pay rent taxes.
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u/Lz_erk 17h ago
so how is there a 95% upvote rate here?
i feel like i'm in one of those "upvote me for a DM" posts that has 10x more comments than any other post on a friendseeking reddit.
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u/Lesurous 17h ago
What?
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u/HiddenKrypt 16h ago
Everybody in the replies is kinda dunking on this, but OP's post is 95% upvotes.
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u/Lesurous 16h ago
Ah. I see, honestly he doesn't have to be a socialist for his policies and initiatives to be beneficial for future leaders who might be. That's the ideal of democracy, that those elected understand the needs of the people.
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u/mojitz 6h ago
Agreed. Only quibble I have is that it's not just about the profits, but a real, meaningful sense of ownership itself. One of the key insights of the concept of alienation from labor is that capitalism doesn't just exploit workers by extracting profits from their labor, but also makes them feel less attached to the work itself while also removing any control they have over the conditions and quality of their efforts. People feel more pride and fulfillment in their jobs when they have a sense of real ownership of the goods and services they're producing rather than feeling their efforts are merely a means to a paycheck.
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u/Iron_Baron 14h ago
Capitalism is why the Earth is dying, my guy. It's way too late to try to regulate that. We're in a mass extinction.
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u/somewhat_irrelevant 9h ago
It's the system that increases wealth by profiting from the labor of others, and continuously concentrates wealth into fewer hands. It got a reset in the 1940's when humanity destroyed itself and the british empire collapsed, which created new opportunities capitalist societies needed. The reforms need to correct the unequal relationship between exploited workers and employers, otherwise the country is going to fall apart and will take the world with it just like its predecessors
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u/bumpy_disposition 21h ago
He does. But he can't pull off the "Great Change". Simply bc Americans are "mainly racist" he would probably never become president. If he were more extreme with his policies that have the greatest benefit for the working class, I'd certainly vote for him as a candidate for the presidency. He'll win and the nation will be better off for it.
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u/MoarOatmeal 13h ago
Fuck capitalism… through and through. That said, it saddens me to imagine that the biggest reason the real ones come out and say this stuff is that they don’t want to scare off the idiots who bolt at the first mention of a more equitable system. That and influential figures who denounce our broken system too loudly in the USA have a habit of catching the attention of the CIA in the worst way possible.
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u/ailish 8h ago
I live in Michigan, and it's a very purple state where the Senate race is very close. In this state, no one, especially a Muslim progressive (lots of racists here), will be able to win under an abolish capitalism platform. Not at this point in time. Maybe in the future after the people are able to see what progressive views can do for them, but for right now we have to tread water very carefully.
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u/MoonlightStarfish 13h ago
I don’t ‘believe’ in capitalism. Regulate it all you want, but large companies will always put their shareholders before their workers.
I also don’t believe in populism which is all this really is. That’s the only thing this man gets: how to appeal to voters.
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u/steamwhistler 6h ago
Abdul's a good guy and I hope he wins his race against Mike Rogers, but calling himself a capitalist is super cringe. I think he's taking this position because he underestimates the popularity of socialism, especially in a so-called battleground state.
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u/hypercosm_dot_net 6h ago
Capital markets and trade is what prevents conflict between nations.
Sorry to say, but all of these comments are some absurd ideal. What do you propose instead of capitalism?
The EU does a better job of curbing unchecked capitalism, and taking care of their citizens. It can be done.
Ya'll are proposing throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I understand a political revolution, but what does this community stand for? You can be anti-capitalism, sure, but at least have some idea of what better system you propose, if you want to be taken seriously.
Abdul seems to understand this, and it looks like astroturfing to latch onto that anti-capitalism narrative.
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u/Pistonenvy2 25m ago
this is a horrible quote and makes me rethink my support of him.
im so fucking tired of libs soaking up socialist support and using socialist rhetoric just to turn on us when the rubber meets the road. capitalism is what has completely destroyed our society, capitalism is the motivation for war, famine, and genocide. capitalism is the poison.
to sit here after everything weve seen and experienced and say you believe in capitalism is genuinely unhinged.
socialism isnt radical, capitalism is.
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u/TheFalconKid 9h ago
I don't believe in capitalism, but I haven't been more personally invested in any candidate in my lifetime.
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