Capitalism may hold us back in some regards but really helps in others.
The majority of people would likely be feudal peasants, working under a warmonger family that owns the sustaining land by force. No upward mobility except through bloodshed.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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The majority of people ~~would likely be~~ are feudal peasants, working under a warmonger family that owns the sustaining land by force. No upward mobility except through bloodshed.
FTFY
No you don’t understand, this 9-to-5 job that’s slowly but surely wearing me down is just a stepping stone to my millions of $$. That’s why I keep voting for tax breaks for the rich; because I’ve just been temporarily down on my luck for 30 years. /s
No, if you're lucky, clever enough, overwork yourself, or manipulate others you can live a somewhat comfortable life. Those methods don't require taking a life.
overwork yourself
comfortable life
Make it make sense
Comfortable as in "you have a heated living space, food on the table, and security." Don't be dense.
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Capitalism optimizes for efficiency. Sadly slavery is terribly efficient in terms of economics. Therefore capitalism needs to be capped by society at certain acceptable limits. Which is called socioeconomics and its not perfect but the best system we have. insert handwavy remark about whatever america is doing here
the problem with this is that we depend on the capitalist overlords to keep their pinky promise of not fucking with our rights.
right now they are breaking it again because they can.
i also don't think having the majority of the money/value going to a few owners is efficient at all.
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Thats still in a sense a commerce based system. The only reason that warlord fights for that land is because it has value, be it food, a cash crop, a strategic location.
Warlords hoarded land and power in similar ways billionaires hoard money and power.
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Commerce is just the exchange of goods and services. If we all stop exchanging goods, in what sense would we have a civilization? What would you or anyone accomplish if you had to grow your own food, make your own clothes, build your own house...?
Commerce is fine, greed is not. OP missed that distinction.
An exchange of goods and services means you get nothing unless I get something. Maybe OP means everything is given as you take what you need with nothing expected in return.
You grow carrots, you bring them to town once a week. Other lady raises chickens, brings eggs once a week. If you need either you take some. You use the eggs to make cookies, you have extra, you give them away to anyone you see for the day.
This works at a feudal technology level. Who makes the trains? They train makers need steel and literally no one would work in a forge or a mine for fun/preference.
Who makes computer chips?
People with the skills show up and collectively make chips, there may be less than produced by typical "blood from a rock" endless growth pacing, but there would at least be enough chips for hospitals, emergency services.
And without the profit motive, the products made would actually be built to last and engineered to be serviceable because there's actually incentive for them to NOT be disposable.
In order to create modern tech, you'll need not only specialized knowledge, but also raw materials. I'm not convinced there would be any volunteer to mine cobalt and lithium without getting paid.
This horribly underestimates the laziness, indifference, and selfishness of the general public. It only works if you zoom out enough to ignore the individual's interest.
First, the easiest one: Silicon is never going to be serviceable or upgradeable. That's not how it works.
There's no chance of all that happening out of good will. Look up what goes into making a Fab (Intel has some tour videos).
These aren't the things that people "with the skills" show up for. It takes a lifetime of studying for some of the layers of these topics, not to mention collaboration between the others (or even finding them, if only the hospitals and emergency services would have access to computers, and therefore professional networking and email).
There are some truly awful jobs on this planet. Look up how sulfur is collected. People literally climb into volcanos to chip it off the walls and carry up sometimes 200lbs on their backs. One trip on that pumice and you're toast.
People need incentives, and with no money, there would be a power vacuum...for another kind of money. I'm not saying capitalism is great or anything, don't get me wrong. But you can't just get rid of money.
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The supply chains used in making modern processors are immense and span many industries all around the world. I don't think people are going to put the tremendous amount of effort into that just because.
Idk little Jimmy has bees having so much fun in the coal mines he's 24 hours past the end of his shift
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Significantly less, since commerce and the ability to trade things for a different value forms the basis for civilization. It's easy to grow and hunt your own food, because that's immediate and concrete. The farther away you get from that, the more abstract that thing becomes. It's going to be harder for people to feel any sense of connection and purpose with making the rubber that goes into a seal on the International Space Station when they don't see any direct benefit from the research done there, and they likely can't even see the indirect benefit of that fundamental research.
For good or ill, commerce is how civilizations universally work, and you'd have to imagine a completely different species that evolved under vastly different circumstances to have anything else.
I think personally That commerce as we know it has played it's role in the success of humanity But now more and more of the bad is showing and way way less of the gain
I personally think it's time to move on or at the very least adapt the systems we have in place
Edit: this was more focused on capitalism not commerce
Imagining a society with out trade is a very hard one for me to grasp
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Interesting, what would be the alternative? Technology, culture, religion, military? Taking those options out of Civ
I think that's the key question. Like, I get capitalism is hedgemonical (is that even a word?), but what alternative do you propose?
"Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others."
What about socialism - ie, everyone gets their basic needs met, but is free to work for more.
It almost seems logical huh
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You could start by giving everyone a share of profits rather than pushing all the money up towards the people who have the most.
Let machines do the work so we can do what we want with our time. We're working more than people did in the past despite our technology. And the reason we have to is the alternative is starving to death in the streets.
Both of these things violate the principles of capitalism.
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religion
I'd love to see how that one plays out. Lol
Tbf we ostensibly already have and are again.
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I'm currently reading The Day The World Stops Shopping by JB Mackinnon, which argues the same point you're asking about, I think you'd find it interesting.
https://www.jbmackinnon.com/the-day-the-world-stops-shopping
imagine everything humans could accomplish if we used billionaires as food and fuel
Wouldn't using them as food just be using them as fuel anyways? The only difference is what you're going to fuel with them.
came to say this. food is fuel, we are merely labyrinthine biological furnaces that chemically incinerates whatever unfortunate matter may enter us. the fuel's affluence is not typically relevant, but I'm a little out of touch on the science, I might be wrong.
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What is a commerce based civilization? Isn't everything commerce based?
If you feel the need to defend capitalism, then you should read "The Jungle".
Wow. Good luck building your stick cabin in the woods all by yourself and growing and foraging all your food because you refuse to trade your labor for produce from a farmer because that would be evil commerce.
Project much? 🤣🤣🤣
Your title is literally putting down commerce and you accuse me of projection? I don't think you know what projection means.
You probably don't even know what commerce means.
Is it time to advance to the Fortress Age?
Well, we would be still in caves cause commerce is the basement of civilization
What about a meritocracy based system where any type of contribution is rewarded, whether it be research, garbage cleanup, etc.? (I’m sure there’s holes to poke in it, just thinking outside of the box.)
The problem with that and most other proposals for whatever other moneyless utopian society is that they all implicitly require some manner of all-powerful central authority to ensure that the rewards get distributed, the labor gets allocated, and the rules stay followed.
And we already know how well that's going to turn out.
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Kinda like how when we contribute our time to our jobs, we're rewarded with... money?
Lol