this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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What is it with these commie types that they believe communism will leave everyone to become hippies who can do whatever they want and all required resources just magically arrive when they need.
It really is watching children believe in Santa Claus
If we didn't all work to produce excess wealth for the super wealthy, we'd have 20 hour workweeks. People can do a lot with that extra time.
Yeah I don't think pure communism is the answer, but neither is pure capitalism.
Let's find a compromise between "equality" and "fuck you, all for me".
That's just a false compromise argument promoting a middle ground that doesn't exist
Capitalism for when there is scarcity (building hi-tech for example) state controlled "socialism" for things needed by everyone (schools, hospitals, roads, internet) seems like a smart start.
Food could go under capitalism if heavy regulated, govt can sponsor art etc. Vote for what suits you.
Yeah and no more lobbying or mega rich(like 10M€ max until at least everyone can eat, read and go to the hospital for free).
The thing is, when someone starts getting very wealthy, they inevitably errode the checks and balances put in place to curtail their power and to protect the poor. For example, electricity used to be nationalised in my country until a few years ago. The state company in charge of it would seek to stay near the floating line, not to make profits, and power was very affordable. Before the pandemic, it got privatised and prices went through the roof, we're talking 1000% increases in some cases, because now they had to make money for the shareholders.
This could only work if the people were very conscious and politically educated, so that they could prevent these things from happening. But just one bad generation can see those hard earned protections and rights erroded.
Basically, it only works if you can keep greedy people from expressing their greed. Evidently, not happening right now.
Exactly. That's why simply regulating capitalism won't work. It has been regulated before, and eventually, little by little, greed wins out, politicians take bribes to lower regulations, and this tension raises again until we earn back what we lost. Rinse and repeat. It's not sustainable.
Historically socialists have been better at utilizing scarce resources. Look at the 50 percent economic growth per decade achieved by soviet centralized economic planning before calculators and machine learning were a thing.
IDK but I feel like the winners of WW2 didn't really need to put a strain on anything to go forward extremely easily compared to before.
I don't think you can judge how the superpowers advanced in the 1950-60-70 having the control over about everything versus how it is today. Also personally I'd like everyone to be included, not just the west + this or that but Africa, south America, etc. etc.
And then surely people will start doing logistics for your fantasy farm in their free time right?
I mean, if they want to, sure. Point is society wouldn't be reliant on that since everything necessary for society to function would be taken care of during the said 20 hour workweek. I don't care if somebody wants to set up a tomato farm or a donkey ranch or whatever on the side, as long as they don't exploit or mistreat anyone.
Logistics would be the job dedicated to moving goods and services around to the place they need to be in. It's not something that would appeal to most but it is a critical job in any modern society.
Set it up with a nice graphical interface, label it "Logistics Simulator 2024" and you'll have people fighting each other for the privilege
Throw some drone trucks in there and baby, you got a stew going.
It's also 24/7 so there'd be people working weird hours. Capital gets that work done even in communist countries (capital or direct coercion).
Why would you need to hire someone? If it's a farm meant to provide food for people then it's commonly owned and the people who work there are state employees, the purpose of the farm being to make food, not profits.
If it's something you do because you want to and out of passion, then why would you hire anyone? Sure, you might want some help, but then you just get people who are passionate about it as well, and you share the produce. Like a community garden.
They I have good or bad news for you, depending on your stance. We don't. You may, depending on the company which you work for, but generally speaking most people don't.
Yes, yes, YES. Capitalism is evil, pitchfork and torches! Reality check: Capitalism is also the very big reason why you have a computer on your desk or in your hands in the shape of a phone to write about the evils of capitalism. Capitalism is at its core about the freedoms to share and acquire resources in the most efficient way possible. Does it have big BIG problems with runaway effects where a single person can suddenly pheewwww shoot into the sky and start resource hogging? Absolutely. Should that be legally limited and curbed? Absolutely! Is that currently done well? Absofuckinglutely not!
But none of that means that "communism will save us". Dear god, please please don't be THAT naive, don't believe in santa claus.
If you want to spend your free time in a commune to help hippies or whatever it is that you want to do, I applaud you. Seriously, well done. But you WILL have to work for a home. You WILL have to work for food, and that computer you have in your hand to curse the evils of capitalism. And you have to work so that when we all do that, that resources get moved over the world so that the farmer gets his equipment that he needs to farm the grains that he sends to a supermarket that gets bought by a baker which you then buy in the shape of a bread loaf... We all work together.
Again, is there a shit tonne of abuse going on? Of course. Nobody denies that. Is that abuse being curbed? Nope. Should we hang the ultra rich that have been abusing this system? Nah, lets not hang people. I'm not for violence. But should we tax them 100% of their income until their posessions are within a reasonable range? Absolutely.
But communism is not the answer, please learn some history about the "successes" (meaning ALL failures, no exceptions) of comnunism. Read about the famines, the suppression, the torture, the corruption and the crap that comes with that to make it work. I like my freedom. I don't need piles of cash and people generally should not be allowed to have piles. You do that with laws and taxing and enforcing. Lets focus on that instead.
Ah yes, because everything you do is to meet societal needs and not to make more money for the 1%. That's why 34% of wealth in Canada goes to the top 1%.
Wall Street:
"Whatever they want" is creating and distributing those resources, but I suppose labour is magic to you.
Enough farmers, here's your pickaxe. You're going to farm coal.
It seems like they believe they can be a gardener vs a farmer. That's the only bit that I see that isn't realistic.
The Christ was a literal bearded, sandle wearing, hippie that told y'all to go live in communes and protect each other and The Earth, but I guess your omnipotent, omniscient God doesn't know what he's taking about.
I love how you just assume that capitalists/socialists are all Christians lol
The fuck do I care what a 2000 year old prophet claimed about an even older warrior god from the middle east?
Im sure that 6000 year old ancient Jewish patriarchs definitely knew the god of the entire universe and it just happened to be the god they selected from their pantheon to be the best god. It's almost like everyone thinks their god is the biggest god, and none of them have ever proven to exist.