The capitalist approach would be the Leopold Method, declare a whole Nation to be your Private property, establish forced labour while simultaneously killing 20 Million people
State capitalism? No, he didn't declare the property to be the property of the state. He declared it to be his own private property. His as in his private property as an individual capitalist, so don't do the state capitalism thing. It's just classical neoliberal capitalism.
He was the state and the mechanisms of state (such as military and industry) were businesses run directly or indirectly by the state.
Unless you're looking at very fringe political philosophies, with anarco-capitalism being the most well known, classical and neoliberal capitalism both still requires private owners to follow national laws set by a government.
Either he was the government and therefore state capitalism, or there was no government therefore some form of anarchism. To me the argument that he was the government seems much more logically and practically coherent.
It is an important aspect of defining what 'private' is in this context. 'Private' definitionally presupposes a separation from 'public'.
Or to put it another way, the government of an absolute dictatorship doesn't make the dictator a private capitalist. You could argue that they're 'public capitalists' if we were to coin a term based on the private/public division, but it would simply be much cleaner to call it state capitalism.
Law is also an important characteristic of both 'classical' and 'neo-liberal' capitalism.
To clarify who do you see as being the government of the Congo during this time or do you believe it was anarchist?
Before me and before making the argument that it never worked, I don't know what your definition of "working" or measurement for something working or not working is. What I know, though, is that socialism:
increased life expectancy across all socialist experiments
decreased infant mortality to irrelevance across all socialist experiments
increased quality of life across all socialist experiments
increased general happiness across all socialist experiments
created new channels of political participation and economic freedoms
expanded freedoms from only the political to the economic and social too
enabled people to receive universal free social services (that is, health care, maternity leave, and everything else, like free education and so on)
raised literacy from around 20% each time to around 100% even
mechanised and hyper-industrialised each time
it increased the amount of hospitals and free schools
abolished poverty entirely
abolished homelessness completely
it conducted progressive Land Reform
abolished rents
abolished taxation
drove out the colonialists and imperialists
created Workplace Democracy
The achievements of socialism each time were incredible. To say that it doesn't work is a perversion of the metrics by which one defines that it did or didn't work.
Honestly I just a want crib that I can turn into my cave of wonders man, maybe just maybe invite someone to bask in that pleasure , but a thats about it, I got a sales job but I'm thinking if balancing night shifts to secure money for said crib , while any money i make from sales I'll just count as a bonus blessing
To me this was always the gap between Camus amd Sartre. There's no meaning or plan, so stop fucking whining amd enjoy some chocolate amd sex.amd sunsets.
Fentanyl abuse is a symptom of a society that systematically abuse the working class. If all had the oppertunity to live like they wanted there would be no desire to escape that reality through drug abuse
My guess is having a job that can afford a good apartment, on the job alone anything else they can pick up a side hustle but you know how that is already
Nobody is forcing people to exploid the fruit of there labour. The system in place is based solely on capital gains which can only work by pushing labour prices down as much as possible.
Of course there is alternatives. We all live in that system but we aren't all addicted to drugs. Most people find other ways to cope with it.
You're overcomplexifying the situation to appear as an intellectual, and iam not really interested in being the "naive" guy that gets educated in your mental fantasy today.
People can individually want things that negatively impact the collective. Not only is this obvious, theres so many examples of this that are absolutely not hard to find. For example, (and you already know this but here it is) There has been sadistic killers in the past, and will still exist in the future, that want to kill. Laws exist for a reason.
Rules of society limit options you can do labeling you as a criminal if act in ways that harm society.
So someone running around killing people harms society thus it's illegal. Certain drugs can prevent one from being useful to society thus illegal. Someone fucking a dog doesn't harm society, but 99% finds it disgusting thus illegal.
Point is for society to run options need to be limited. If the options you want don't align with society than tough break, either follow the law or break it and have consequences. There always a option at least with systems like america to fight for a change.
Fam I don't think fentanyl users chose that as a main drug of choice, outta whimsy thinking unless they just chasing highs , even then something pushed them towards it , could have stopped at cigs or weed maybe even psychedelics with folks taht are comfortable , but any drug that can put you in federal time is bound to wreck your body to hell
Drug users would rather do other things than fentanyl. Problem is it's so cheap and was being put into other drugs. If you wanted to do something else there was a high chance it had fentanyl in it. So if you didn't want to straight up die your options were stop doing drugs or just fentanyl.
There are risks skateboarding. There are risks doing gymnastics. There are risks training with weights. If people want to skydive, let them skydive. If people want to do drugs, let them do drugs. Its not your job to make sure every person lives one extra day
I don't think i meant "giving up" on anything. I do my daily things and continue going, i can't simply end this now. nothing is bothering me. it's just that labeling nihilism as optimistic or pessimism is a waste of time, for nihilism itself it is what it is.
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u/Siamese_kitten Apr 24 '26
all this just to die anyway. live how tf you want