this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/19046336

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (54 children)

Well of course it has, fascism is the end result of capitalism. Some would say it's natural conclusion.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

fascism is the end result of capitalism

I wonder what sort of echo chamber you must live in, in order to believe this

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago

Late stage capitalism?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Fascist regimes generally came into existence in times of crisis

Too bad that modern capitalism produces wealth like no other system - the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (2 children)

the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened

hahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahaha

hahahahah ' hahahahaha

hahaahahahahahahahahahaha

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

What a lemmy moment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

hahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahahhahaha

hahahahah ' hahahahaha

hahaahahahahahahahahahaha

10/10 argument. You lost

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No, you just made a likely bad faith argument he couldn't be bothered to engage with.

There has been a rise in far-right parties in many countries, many of which don't officially label themselves as fascist for plausible deniability, while spouting clearly fascist rhetoric. Their current scapegoats of choice include (but are not limited to) immigrants and lgbtq people.

But if you're not being disingenuous, what do you think fascism is?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

There has been a rise in far-right parties

Extremist organizations exist always and everywhere - what both of you fail to understand is that they're very small (although sometimes loud) minorities.

what do you think fascism is?

A totalitarian movement in pre ww2 Italy, that killed a lot of people.

What do you think it is?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just to be clear, your argument was Checks notes "Too bad that modern capitalism produces wealth like no other system" had the proof "the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2." was truly a masterclass.

It's like you had this well thought out idea, and really just made sure everyone understood that yo-

sorry, hahahahhahaha i just cant, every time I read it I laugh again, hahahahah thank you so much this made my day.

Enjoy being ratio'd though, the view is incredible from up here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

You live in your own little world, aren't you?

being ratio'd

By people as misguided as you.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

the supposed resurgence of fascism never happened despite EU running capitalism for 79 years since the World War 2.

If you took 5 minutes to look into elections in Europe and in US, you'd see that far-right are becoming more dominant in elections, white nationalists and neo-nazis are openly having marches on streets and attacking the "enemy" (like immigrants or muslims), Russia is pretty much an unofficial fascist state right now and so on.

You're right, resurgence of fascism never happened, but it is happening right now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

happening right now

No, you're just one of radicals on the opposite side of political spectrum. Everyone with the wrong opinion is called fascist these days.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

What, you think Stiglitz is some kind of dangerous tankie now? Jfc, talk about muddying the waters. The forces that motivated the germans to "seek shelter" from markets with the nazis are the same pushing people to vote for Le Pen, AfD today.

Even Orban's little dictatorship is a product of the sovereign debt crisis of the EU in 2014. If neoliberals are so blind that they lose touch with their people, voters will seek shelter from market forces either to the left or to the far-right, depending on how they understand what is happening.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This isn't a bait. I tried once explaining the differences between fascism and nazism and guess what? Got acussed of being fascist. The only reason was because others didn't like my argument.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Nazism is a flavour of fascism. They're not "differences", they're technicalities

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

extracts wealth

Produces. Wealth comes from efficient allocation of resources - capitalist free markets are really good at it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Efficiency under capitalism?

We waste tremendous amounts of food but people go hungry.

We produce absurd levels of clothing, much of which is destroyed and sent to landfills without being worn, but there are people who need it.

We have more houses than unhoused by a huge factor.

Capitalism optimizes for profit and profit only. Sometimes that leads to good outcomes, sometimes it leads to bad outcomes.

It's not "efficient" in terms of taking care of people's needs. It's only efficient in terms of producing profits for the owner and investor classes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We waste tremendous amounts of food but people go hungry.

This waste may look big in absolute numbers, but probably isn't meaningful as percentage of total economy - we're wealthy so many of us can afford to be a little wasteful.

Capitalism optimizes for profit and profit only. Sometimes that leads to good outcomes, sometimes it leads to bad outcomes.

Usually bad outcomes are the corner cases - I'm perfectly aware that they exist (harmful monopolies, CO2, ect.) But it's the role of solid legal framework to deal with these issues.

On the other hand you have at best no idea what sort of pathologies can arise in alternatives to capitalism, and at worst it can be repeat of the of USSR or North Korea.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm used to shallow responses that regurgitate the capitalist realism everyone grows up in but this one is exceptionally poor.

We waste food on an industrial scale, it's not just household waste. Grocery stores dump good food all the time, sometimes going so far as to spoil it or otherwise prevent it from being retrieved from the dumpsters they toss it in.

You're also just parroting the notion that socialism means authoritarianism, there are many examples of non-democratic and pseudo-democratic countries with a capitalist economy, this is because the economic system is different from the political system.

The biggest irony with your (poorly thought out but strongly held) belief is that a socialist economy IS more democratic. Workers owning their workplaces and benefiting from their output and participating in decision making is more democratic and free than the petite dictatorships that make up a capitalist economy.

As a worker you are only hired and remain employed insofar as you produce more value for the company than you cost, that's a plain fact. This means that the people who own your company are taking wealth that you produce. This is the "freedom" you're blindly advocating for.

I wonder why you feel like you must be a champion for this exploitative system. You're being so submissive to your owners. What a good little worker.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Grocery stores dump good food all the time

My relative happens to work in the food trade industry. The only cases when they dump food is either when expiration date is passing, or when they suspect that frozen stuff was transported incorrectly - aka cooling/freezing chain was broken somewhere - in that case they just don't accept the transport - it's most likely dumped afterwards by the company delivering it.

Sale of expired food is forbidden by law.

As a worker you are only hired and remain employed insofar as you produce more value for the company than you cost

Of course. Also as a worker I remain hired and employed as long as the employer delivers me more value (aka wage and other benefits) than his competitors. Otherwise I dump him just like he'd dump me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The "best before" dates aren't expiration dates. They dump them only because they don't sell as well. It's prioritizing profit over feeding people.

You're very uninformed, but very confident.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In EU they ARE expiration dates. It's forbidden to trade expired food

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know anything about European regulation but food waste is still a major problem there https://feedbackeurope.org/results-of-eu-food-waste-survey-2024-edition/. In the US and Canada grocery stores throw food out if they think they can't sell it, even "ugly" fruit and vegetables.

Your point seems to be that you think grocery store food waste is a matter of too much regulation. I can't argue with someone who treats capitalism like a deity and works backwards from the axiom that capitalism is perfect therefore something else must be wrong.

You're the biggest capitalism simp I've encountered in quite some time. You come across like a libertarian, and maybe you are, if so I wish you had been forthcoming with that information so I knew not to waste my time trying to have a rational conversation with someone with an oxymoronic political identity. Nobody can rationalize their way out of such doublethink.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Your point seems to be that you think grocery store food waste is a matter of too much regulation

I thought it's a mater of public health and safety.

I can't argue with someone who treats capitalism like a deity

I can't ignore what I see. And I see, computers, airplanes, modern agriculture, and all the wonders of modern civilization.

You come across like a libertarian

I was a libertarian as a teenager, but with time I understood that every extremism is pathological. I'd say I'm a liberal now.

You're the biggest capitalism simp I've encountered in quite some time

It's always gets personal with you people. You can't win the debate and you get angry.

oxymoronic political identity.

Which part of my identity is oxymoronic? You throw accusations but you never give any examples.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The oxymoronic identity is libertarianism. It masquerades as anarchy but doesn't oppose capitalist oppression.

You don't seem to understand that what's profitable isn't always what's best. You are ignoring the scale of waste.

In the off chance that you're interested, here's a really accessible apolitical video about climate (likely from a liberal perspective, but apolitical like I said) that does a great job summarizing https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GDLaYrMCFo. Liberal regulations might help there, but it's capitalist forces at play.

Regarding your "what about iphone?" comments, I'm sick of that tired argument and won't engage further. You might consider that there's been technological progress long before capitalism and even in recent history the Soviets outperformed the Americans in quite a few areas.

I'm not pro-soviet, but it's interesting that a serfdom-turned-communist nation that was brutally destroyed and lost much of its population in world war 2 was able to maintain global superpower status against a nation that was relatively unscathed and gained economically from ww2.

China is absolutely a capitalist nation, but they don't need American style capitalism to dominate the Americans in green technologies.

Attributing all technological progress to your vision of capitalism is pure worship, not fact.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Exactly, capitalist markets are really good at extracting resources from the land and labour from the people to make a profit, they just don't know where to stop until it's too late, unless they are regulated.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

They're also getting increasingly more efficient at funneling profits to the top, rather to the greatest value producers: labourers. This is wage theft. Get it all the way to 100% and you have slavery.

Though important to note that slavery does not just meant you don't get paid. Though I don't think anyone needs a splainer on that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (4 children)

extracting resources from the land and labour

You're trying to paint production in a negative way, while in reality competitive markets converge to most fair prices

Law of supply and demand dictates that too low wage will fail to attract workers, while too high wage will result in product that is too expensive and won't attract customers willing to buy.

It's a beautiful, self regulating communication network that pays well for stuff that is in demand and pays little for things nobody wants

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

No, it is you who are seeing the world as just markets, as if markets is what produces wealth, as if labour were just a pesky cost that you can't get rid of.

As the pandemic showed, it is workers that produce wealth and are essential. Markets have their place, but need to be controlled so they don't kill the people who power them.

Also: markets fail very often when the incentives and structure are not aligned with the socially desired outcomes.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Law of supply and demand dictates

This is the economic version of "assume a spherical cow in a vacuum." An economic "law" is an idealized description of how things work when there are no confounding factors, not a rule the real world is compelled to obey. It turns out the real world is full of confounding factors that make the law too unreliable to predict—or even admit—things the rise of fascism.

It's a beautiful, self regulating communication network

On paper yes, but Jesus Christ, look around you. It's only beautiful if you overlook its fatal flaws.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Too low wage and the government will top up those being underpaid by their employer, effectively passing on part of the burden of pay to the tax payer.

If wages rise too high, the government will always step in to make sure it doesn't continue.

Its highly externally regulated and ultra manipulated by the people who buy labour and own for their money. Sadly, some people still beleive in the "invisible hand" blessed be its name story.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Oh my sweet summer child.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yep, nothing inefficient about an intern commuting via plane from South Carolina to New York everyday because it's much cheaper than living in New York. /s 🙄

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I would argue that it was not capitalist benevolence that kept social peace for 80 years, it was partly the existence of the USSR that forced capitalist governments to make concessions to the social state to prevent communist influence from expanding westwards, flawed as it was.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

capitalist benevolence

Capitalism is neither benevolent nor malevolent - it just happens it has most aligned incentives between egoistic actors

forced capitalist governments to make concessions

Really, really not. People were escaping from socialist USSR republics to western countries. This is why USSR decided to build a wall - their disfunctional system couldn't compete

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The New Deal is an example of capitalists understanding that you need to make some concessions to keep the peace, I'd call that sorta benevolent.

About the USSR: yes, people escaped it, but there was a chance that democracies would flip communist if you squeezed the population too much, so there was a political incentive to creating social policies to control capitalist forces. Without fear of the USSR agitators and backing, they had less incentive to compromise a.k.a. TINA.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Fascism was maintained in several European countries way beyond 1940s, such as my homeland Spain. There were also fascist regimes after WW2 outside Europe, such as in Chile or arguably in South Korea and Taiwan.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

lemmy.ml isn't the real world

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

You dont have to be a tankie to understand that the neverending capitalist search for growth leads to exploitation and eventually backlash.

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