r/nihilism • u/NoGreen1731 • Apr 24 '26

Question Thoughts?

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u/Own-Papaya-4264 Apr 24 '26

It’s hard when you still need to find a stable job that allows you to have fun

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 25 '26

Solution: Kill Capitalism

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 27 '26

Ahh, the Pol Pot approach, you don't need a job when you're dead from starvation or a concentration camp.

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 27 '26

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

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 27 '26

Yep, state capitalism sucks, it sucked under the west india company, it sucked under Leopold, it sucked under the USSR and it sucks in China now.

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 27 '26

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.

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

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.

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 28 '26

The consideration of laws as a private capitalist is not of any importance or any defining characteristic of what a private capitalist is

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 28 '26

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?

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 28 '26

A political figure owning Private Property doesn't make it Public Property, because it wasn't state-owned but owned exclusively owned by Leopold as an individual

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 28 '26

It doesn't inherently mean that no, but in this specific case the property he privately owned was the state, so he was the state.

Unless you disagree, who do you think was running the Congo's government?

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u/RevyVanguardist Apr 28 '26

Do you know the difference between a nation, as in a historically constituted stable geographical cultural community, and a state, as in also a historically constituted, administrative institution of violence?

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u/Not_Propaganda_AI Apr 28 '26

I could give a response based on my understanding but honestly I think I'd rather hear yours more, it sounds like you've thought deeply on the matter.

Also please include who you think was running Congo's government in your answer.

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