this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Not trying to get into a whole ugly thing, just curious what your pro-capitalism stance is. Because I would definitely fall into this big Lemmy category of seeing 90-905% of modern problems being rooted in capitalism. So I would (civilly!) disagree, no doubt. Doesn’t mean we can’t have a reasonable discussion!
I would also be interested in a defence of capitalism that doesn't come down to "but the USSR" or similar.
Yeah I agree with this as well. It's not a binary view: either for or against capitalism. You can disapprove of everything happening in the US right now and still be for some form of capitalism.
Most people I know think that the US has gone way too far with their strand of capitalism, and yet they almost range from the complete left-to-right in terms of Dutch politics. Only the very right wing people here think that the US is doing something good right now. The rest, from center-right (or even proper neoliberal) all the way to the commies see a system that is failing in some way.
Yet on Lemmy this nuance seems completely lost sometimes. You're either a part of the capitalists/liberals and therefore approve of the oligarchy and dystopian capitalism in the US, or you join the radical "destroy capitalism" views. It's gotten better after the insane people from Hexbear left tho
Yeah, because I consider myself a pretty reasonable person. People have a big problem these days of never engaging with nuance, no matter how much you try to bring any conversation back to it. Things are definitely not as binary as people seem to only be able to conceive of them. The entire world and even the most seemingly clear cut issues have loads of grey area that people just can’t discuss because as soon as you say, “yes, I agree we need to ____! But we need to discuss the trickier parts” it turns into a witch hunt for anyone pointing out anything that might be considered a tricky part because it goes against the “I’m 100% on this side and it’s the only right opinion.”
It’s frustrating.
I don't have much time and energy for long discussions, but I just wanna share my feelings.
I feel like people here see capitalism as a very black and white thing. Either it's there and corrupting everything or it's gone and everything is awesome. Personally I don't think that's the case. In my opinion there are some cases where the market can solve things more efficiently than a government institution, granted that this market is regulated and controlled by the government. I'm against unbounded capitalism like we see way too often nowadays.
But here in western Europe, while certainly not perfect, the situation is way better than in the US. The government controls companies, gives them a slap on the wrist if they get too greedy. And while it still poisons a lot that it touches, the competitive aspect of it also makes sure that many inefficiencies are cut. In my opinion even we are not regulating it enough, and I do consider myself left-wing. But completely abolishing capitalism doesn't make sense to me either.
I think some things are better left to the government, stuff like healthcare, public transport, utilities like water or maybe even energy. Other things are better left private (but regulated): restaurants, barbers, supermarkets, most product development like phones, cameras, cars, computers, etc. There's a huge grey area there that I don't really have an opinion on.
But I don't see how a society without capitalism can provide stuff like decent smartphones, game consoles, restaurants, festivals, etc. These more "luxury" goods rely on competition to innovate and provide decent experiences, and here capitalism works better in my view.
Human greed is not because of capitalism. Humans have been greedy from the very beginning.
The issue is greed, it's the core problem in all these human systems, even democracy main issue is how greedy the politicians get.
You don't solve greed by getting rid of capitalism, there seems not to be a solution for greed.
I mean, I mostly agree with this. You can boil any problem down to existence. And existence down to molecular processes.
But two things: discussing modern problems, it’s all built on systems. And the system we deal with is capitalism.
Human fallibility is the problem, ultimately. But there is no overcoming human fallibility. So building systems that place peoples well being above all else is an actionable solution. Whereas solving human fallibility isn’t.
And secondly, hierarchy in all its forms. Which I would argue is the problem boiled down past the system to look at its problematic parts. Does a system rely on or serve needs in a hierarchical manner? Then that’s the problem.
That’s as far as I think is logical to go. Digging down further to human nature is a problem for a utopian society to deal with, and that we are nowhere near to achieving. So, my point is we need to deal with the first layer of problems. And that would be capitalism. Abolishing hierarchy in all its forms comes second.
The first because the system rewards the worst parts of our nature. The second because it’s almost uniformly led to corruption. Those are the root problems, from my point of view. Human fallibility is, I’m afraid, baked into the cookie. But removing systems that reward those errors instead of eradicating them should be job one.
Then the problem lies with democracy not with capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system, the "first layer of problems" as you call them would be the systems we use every day and those systems have been built by the government.
What is the difference between US and Germany? Both are capitalist nations, but one is socialdemocracy and the other isn't.
But I would argue a country with two parties isn't really a democracy.
LOL. I'm not pro-capitalism, but thank you for proving my point.
I actually think, as one example, the US's healthcare system should 100% be socialized.
The public healthcare and pension fund that Spain used today were created during the fascist dictatorship, as many other things that just made sense.
As I said in another post, the main issue is greed. Why does the US don't have a public healthcare system? Because of greed. It's so obvious humanity has classified greed was a problem for centuries.
Proving your point…about what? I was just curious to hear someone’s thoughts who went against the idea that most modern problems can be traced back to the roots of capitalism. But fuck me, right?